Do you hold regular staff meetings and if you do hold meetings, do you or your staff dread them? There are lots of reasons for you and your staff to hate meetings, but we can give you some positive reasons to hold them and some directions on how to turn them into a win-win situation. A regular staff meeting can go a long way to creating a unified and happy team.
Team meetings often turn into housekeeping sessions, where housekeeping and arguments over who cleaned bowls or who didn’t sweep floors turns into a free for all of finger pointing and name calling. Staff members leave feeling demoralized and salon owners leave feeling frustrated.
Establish a routine where meetings occur on the same day at the same time.
Nobody likes to have a meeting sprung on them at the last minute. Your meetings should occur on a regular basis and create continuity and consistency for the staff. If developed properly, staff will begin to look forward to these meetings as a safe venue for sharing. Create an agenda. It gives the facilitator guidance during the meeting and aids everyone in staying on track.
If regular meetings haven’t been part of your regular schedule it can be rather intimidating to start springing meetings on your staff. One strategy would be to put out a questionnaire to your staff. Get their feedback on what they might like to see at a staff meeting, and what kind of information they would like to see presented. When you do start holding regular meetings lay out the ground rules before you begin.
Make sure that only one person speaks at a time.
The team leader or facilitator must also act as mediator, encourage the participation of the staff and create a safe environment by eliminating sarcasm, finger-pointing and put-downs. Maintaining order will develop trust and respect among your staff. Everyone learns better and is more receptive to new ideas when they are having fun and laughing, so keep your meetings entertaining and engaging.
Make sure your team understands that you won’t tolerate any negative behavior. Staff meetings are also a great opportunity to express appreciation and reward your staff for achievements and accomplishments.
Have someone take notes so that a follow-up can be sent out to the staff. Food and drink are always a welcome addition. (!) Break the ice with a fun game or ice-breaker. You will find lots of books with great meeting games and ideas. Keep a binder to collect your agendas. It will help you to look back and see what has been covered, and will inspire you as you move forward.
Do a Team “Huddle.”
This is a team micro-meeting usually held before a shift starts. It is the opportunity to connect with your staff in a short motivational up-date. The meeting is held standing up in order to keep it short. It lasts about five to fifteen minutes and is spent praising the staff members or sharing salon growth and business wins. In salons where there is more than one shift, the huddle works well as we can hold them at the beginning of each shift.
Huddles:
- Begin the day with a positive start and create purpose for the actions to follow
- Support improvement and share more efficient techniques
- Focus on the right things and how to move people through the system cleanly and achieve the goals set out
- Reinforce the sense of team – create an opportunity for staff members to share their challenges and have the help of other team members
- Keep everyone informed of what is going on, changes in policies or introduction of promotions. This is also a great place to create a day-long challenge. For example: the person that offers the most additional services to the clients of the day might win a $25 Starbucks gift card.
Huddles have become the most popular form of meeting in large corporations and fit the salon business model very well. Let’s get huddled next week!
Here is a succinct look at the outline for a great meeting:
- Eliminate the housekeeping
- Praise in public, critique in private
- Have an agenda
- One speaker at a time
- Invite solutions rather than problems to the meeting
- Hold them regularly
- Reward and praise
- Have fun!
As we have often said; communication is nine-tenths of the world’s problem. By holding regular staff meetings and huddles we have a good chance of closing the gap on miscommunication!
End every meeting whether it is a staff meeting or a huddle should end with rewards and “high-fives”! WHAT GETS REWARDED GETS REPEATED!!
