April 22, 2015

Tips for an effective salon or spa employee meeting

1) Ask everyone to arrive five to ten minutes early to a salon or spa employee meeting. This gives everyone time to socialize, obtain coffee, or organize materials before the meeting. It also ensures that everyone is present at the scheduled starting time. Make this part of the agenda. Use the Salon Software and Spa Software employee messaging system to inform employees about the meeting. Put the meeting in employees work schedule and appointment book in Advantage Salon and Spa Software so they do not take an appointment by mistake during the meeting time.

2) Discuss sensitive issues with the key participants before the meeting. Use this as an opportunity to listen and gather information on the issues. From this you will understand the different views, and needs. This information can help you prepare the agenda and conduct the meeting. In addition, you may be able to facilitate solutions or strategies for solutions before the meeting. In either case, the result will be a more efficient meeting.

3) Plan small meetings that focus on a single issue. People work more effectively over short periods of time less then 30 minutes. Prepare a list of questions, ideas, suggestions before the meeting. Then you can focus your attention on the discussion in the meeting.

4) Only invite those who can contribute to at least 50% of the items on the agenda. For meetings lasting more than 30 minutes, invite special participants only to the part of the meeting that deals with their contribution.

5) Send copies of the minutes to everyone who could have been invited for informational purposes. They can read the minutes in a small fraction of the time that they would have been spent in the meeting.

6) Don’t allow the meeting’s intent to drift, ask: “What do you want to achieve?” or “How can we help you?” or “How will we know when we are done working on this?” These questions can help focus the meeting on a goal.

7) If a meeting seems out of control, suggest adjourning and reconvening at a later time. This will allow you to clarify goals, prepare strategies, and better understand the issues.

8) Reflect the content of key points for you salon or spa meeting. This ensures that everyone has the same understanding of the key point. Although this is one of the chairperson’s responsibilities, it can be filled by anyone else in the meeting.

9) Watch the listeners instead of the speaker. Their faces and body language will tell you whether they agree or disagree, which can help guide your participation in the discussion in the salon or spa employee meeting.

10) Work with a sense of appropriate urgency. Life is finite, and the discussions in meetings should be the same. Plan a time budget and then use it to guide your meeting. Spend extra time only when an issue warrants it.

Use the Advantage Salon Software and Spa Software employee messaging system to send follow up about your meetings and the results of the meetings if there is a change in salon or spa policy.