Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva. Happy New year to you if you’re listening to this episode in real time. So excited to welcome you into a beautiful, gorgeous, and deeply successful 2024.
If you’re listening on the replay, I hope that the industry is treating you well, and I’m really excited to dig into this week’s episode. We are going to talk about motivating Gen Z.
This is not by any means the first time I’ve talked about the differences in generations in our industry. If you go back to podcast episode number 235, it’s called Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Zs in the Salon. I talk about the difference between all of the generations, how they see the industry, how they like to work, how they like to be managed. We dig into all of them.
When we look at the industry right now, the vast majority, the vast majority is millennials, and then we have a good chunk of Gen X, a good chunk of Gen Z, and some boomers, I would say probably less than 15% of the industry is boomers at this point because that’s the age of over 60 looking to retirement.
It’s not to say that they aren’t stylists still working in their sixties. Abso-freaking-lutely. They are and they rock. But what I’m saying is that when you look at the vast majority of the workforce, you’re going to see the bulk millennials, then quite a bit of Gen X, quite a bit of Gen Z. That’s the split. So 235 if you haven’t listened already.
But this week we’re going to talk specifically about Gen Z because I had a beautiful question come in from somebody in my Thriving Leadership program.
If you don’t know, now you know: I have a program dedicated to exceptional salon leadership. We talk compensation plans, we talk growth plans and paths, core values, mission statements, vision statements, company meetings, how to motivate, how to set up structure, how to do write-ups, how to hire, how to fire, all the stuff.
But we also have this great community where people can ask questions and we have this beautiful question come in from a salon owner and I want to share it with you and talk about how we can use her question to motivate our team as a whole.
This salon leader said, “Britt, I need your help. I’m really struggling to manage, mentor, and motivate a good portion of my stylists. These stylists happen to be Gen Z, and I feel like it’s because they have the mentality of seeing where life takes them and they don’t have the direction to be self-motivated.”
I think that’s an interesting perspective. “I’ve been seeing this more and more and I really want to support them in that. I’m not trying to change them. I’m trying to better understand how to lead.”
And much love and deep props to this salon owner. When you’re in Thriving Leadership, you do adapt this mindset of, okay, it’s not my job to change anybody. It’s not even really my job to manage anybody. It’s my job to lead them. That’s the ideology that this person’s coming from.
This leader says, “My leadership and coaching has always been based on that end-goal vision style of management,” meaning you have a team and the goal is to get them to the finish line, which is pretty typical. It’s how most of us were led in our early working years.
If you’re such as myself, what’s hilarious, just a quick sidebar. I was a mother by the time I was 18, and I always promised myself, I was like, “I’m going to be the youngest coolest mom forever and I’m never going to let the world pass me by.” Now as I sit here and record this podcast talking about my generation and older generations, and I’m talking about the younger generation, it’s making me realize I am that out of touch, late-thirties-something person that I always didn’t want to be.
Here I am accepting and loving myself where I am, and now I’m going to talk about younger generations and older generations and all this stuff. So if you’re of my generation or if you’re a Gen X or a boomer, you know that for us it was “Do as you’re told, work really hard. If you work hard enough one day, the glory will come.”
Gen Z doesn’t believe any of that, so there’s literally no point in trying to convince them of it because it’s not of their belief system.
Have you ever met anybody and tried to convince them that their beliefs are wrong on a spiritual level? Good luck to you. Once somebody has made up their mind about the way something is, it is incredibly challenging to change them, especially when you’re talking about an entire generation.
I want to remind everybody, when you look at any of us, whether you are Gen Z, millennial, Gen X, boomer, whatever, when you look up to the generations that came before us, they all thought we were morons. They all thought that we were totally out of touch.
Imagine if you had a child in the seventies. Watching your kid go through the free love movement and all that stuff. They thought their children were insane. Now as we’re looking at Gen Z and we’re casting all these judgments on them, we’re becoming that old, out of touch generation. It doesn’t make us look wiser or smarter or more elevated or more educated. It makes us look more out of touch.
What I need you to understand is there will always be generational differences.
Why does Gen Z get such a bad rep? Does anybody know? It’s because it’s the first time we’ve been able to psychoanalyze a generation on social media, literally the first time. Because for me, I’m of the millennial generation. Social media didn’t exist until I was into my twenties and Gen Z goes up to 26. By the time social media came around, I was already on the tail end of that, so my generation wasn’t being psychoanalyzed.
Gen Z has only ever been under a microscope. We obsess over who they are and how they act and what they should do and what they shouldn’t do. And I can’t believe this: we have never psychoanalyzed the shifts and changes in a generation the way we’re doing with Gen Z in real time.
Step one—I haven’t even gotten into content yet, by the way. Step one with what I’m about to share is that you need to understand the goal is not to change Gen Z, just like it was not the goal of the generations before you to change you. You came hardwired as you are, just like Gen Z does. The goal is for you to adapt. That is the only choice you have.
This podcast episode’s going to be about adaptation, and I just want to shut out this salon leader because clearly what she’s saying is she’s not trying to shift these stylists back to her way of thinking. She’s simply trying to adapt and get to a place where she can lead them with confidence, and I can super respect that.
Let’s talk about what is Gen Z, what’s not Gen Z, and then let’s dig into how to motivate.
Gen Z technically is going to be anybody born between the years of 1997 and 2012. Gen Z right now at the time of this recording would be between the ages of 11 and 26.
Then there’s millennials, millennials or anybody born between 1981 and 1996. At the time of this recording, it’s anybody between the ages of 27 and 42.
Then there’s Gen X. Gen X is anybody born between 1965 and 1980. These people are aged 43 to 58, and then above that generation in our workforce would be considered the boomers of the baby boomer generation.
What’s fascinating is when you look at these generations, often we say Gen Z is the lazy generation. That is by far and away their reputation, which I fully don’t believe in, and I don’t believe in it for a couple reasons.
One, I don’t know if you know this, my business is called Flourish Salon Business Development, even though you probably know of it as Thrivers, but here at FSBD, we have 16 employees. I think four of them are probably Gen Z right now. Some of the hardest working people you’ll ever meet.
When people are like, “Gen Z is so lazy,” I’m like, “Are you just hiring lazy people?” I know lazy millennials. I know Lazy Gen Xers. You have lazy friends, I have lazy friends, I have lazy family members. But what are we talking about? It has nothing to do with the generation that they’re from. Some people are just lazy. So yeah, that exists.
But I look at the employees that I have that are Gen Z—my daughter’s a Gen Z. Man, they’re some of the hardest working young people I’ve ever met. Part of me is like, “Are you just buying into the stereotype? Are you just hiring the wrong people?” This is one of those episodes where you’re going to have to look internally a little bit.
This was interesting, this was from a study out of Deloitte. Millennials tend to be somewhat engaged in their careers by statistic. 41% say they are focused and dedicated to whatever career they have. 41% of millennials versus 49% of Gen Z describe themselves as engaged and motivated in their careers. That’s a 10% more engagement. Would you like it if your revenue increased by 10%? I would. 10% is huge.
Okay, so knowing that maybe Gen Z is actually a little more motivated than millennials should be something that gets you a little bit excited.
Now also, there was some other interesting data coming out of the survey. They surveyed Gen Zs to find out what their career goals were. This is the kind of stuff I geek out over because when you hear what somebody’s career goals are, it helps you to understand their psyche and where they’re at.
This might surprise you. They didn’t say YouTuber, which is another common stereotype of Gen Z. Like, “Oh, they all want to be internet famous.” No, they don’t, and we’re going to talk about what they actually do want. But Gen Z surveyed said their top career choices were number one, a business person like an entrepreneur. Gen Z is the entrepreneurial generation. There’s no doubt about it. I have been reporting widely for over two years that the trades are seeing a huge surge. I’ve reported twice in 2023 that the amount of new businesses started in the last five years has doubled and tripled. Entrepreneurship is trendy. So when Gen Z says, “I want to be a business owner”,” I want to be an entrepreneur,” that shouldn’t surprise you. That means they’re a perfect candidate to be a stylist.
Now, do they know yet how hard it’s going to be? No, but that’s your job as a leader to coach and guide them through.
Now we’re going to get into that number one business person, entrepreneur number two, guess what? It was doctor followed by engineer. Fourth, artist. I thought that was so fascinating. Why doctor, an engineer? I want you to remember that because we’re going to come back around to it in a second.
And artists didn’t actually surprise me either because artists and business person to me almost are flip sides of the same coin where it’s about creativity and showing who you are as an individual. I like that they are choosing to follow their hearts versus following their parents’ game plan for them, if that makes sense. It’s where Gen Z is at.
Let’s look at what Gen Z prioritizes and the way they come hardwired so that we can get into how to motivate them.
First thing you should know, Gen Z is incredibly tech savvy. They were born with iPads in their hands. You know what I’m saying? My daughter’s a Gen Z, she got an iPod, we had it engraved and it said on the back, “Happy ninth birthday.” When she was nine, she got it for her first iPod.
But if you don’t know, now you know, iPods in the mid two thousands were like iPhones without cell phone service. She was able to text message us, it had wifi capabilities, listen to music, download things, basically like a cell phone without cell service is what she got when she was nine.
We were the holdouts for that. We as a family held off on technology as long as we could. When she got hers, everyone was like, “Oh my gosh, finally.” Nine was late. I’m not here to judge anybody on their tech expectations for their family or whatever. What I’m saying is that’s the social pressure that exists right now.
My child has had technology in her hands for more than half her lifetime. It’s all she knows, and she was begging for that freaking thing for years before we gave it to her. They are driven by tech.
What does that mean for you? That means if your social media looks crummy or you’ve decided it’s too hard or it’s something you’re not going to learn or you don’t have time for it, you’re going to have a very difficult time motivating and hiring Gen Z. You’re going to look very out of touch and you’re not speaking the same language as them. Tech is their number one priority. So if you’re deciding it’s such a waste of time, you’re not going to learn how to use it, that’s fine, but none of the new generations are going to want to work for you.
Number two, your website. Your website is so freaking important. When my daughter was looking for salons to work at, a lot of people asked me, “Oh, did she start on Instagram?” Do you know how hard it is?
Imagine this. Imagine if you are in these shoes, you move to a new city and you’re trying to find a salon to work in. How are you going to comb Instagram to find that salon? You are just going to start blindly typing in “Nashville salons” and hope that hashtags and geotagging and all that’s going to magically bring up the best salons in Nashville on Instagram?
I have news for you. That’s not how that algorithm works.
So how do up-and-coming Gen Z stylists find amazing places to work? I’ll tell you, it’s Google. And you know what else? It’s really hard because most salons don’t have great websites. It’s not easy to understand what they offer to their team members. Are you booth rental? Are you commission-based? Are you hourly? What’s the growth path? What’s the plan? How do you build business?
I’m a mentor in the industry and I was sitting here side by side with her trying to help her to make these decisions and I was like, “Girl, I don’t even know what’s going on on most of these businesses and I know what to look for.” It should have been that much easier, and it was equally as hard.
Having a well-built website, having your social media, having online booking. Y’all, if you are still booking by paper, Gen Z laughs at you and it’s going to be less and less and less cute with each passing year.
And I say “cute” to try and be gentle tongue-in-cheek, and I totally understand that, but you’re actually missing out on, I’m not even exaggerating, probably at least $10,000 a year if you don’t have online booking and not just because like, “Oh, you get more clients when you book online.” I’m not even talking about that. I’m talking about the metrics, the correspondence, the marketing, all of the stuff that you can do with automation. You’re just simply missing out on revenue.
Knowing that Gen Z is tech savvy, if your salon and your business is not tech savvy, you’re going to really struggle to hire and motivate Gen Z. If you don’t look like you’re with it, you’re not going to inspire them to stay with it either.
The other thing they value is flexibility. You probably already know this, and whenever I say flexibility in Gen Z, it’s that ultimate eye roll and people are like, “I know, they never want to work.” No, no, no, no, no, they want to work. But here’s the two number one things they ask for when it comes to flexibility.
Number one, flexible hours, which should be no surprise to you. I look back and our assisting program, when you started working for us, you were allowed to take one Saturday off your first year working. One Saturday. I look back now and it’s like, wow. A policy like that to me would never fly to today, but this was 15 years ago, maybe even more than that, maybe 17 years ago, and that was pretty standard. The fact that we gave one Saturday off, it was like, okay, that was very acceptable. Then I think it was five additional days off. I mean, it was nothing. No time. That is, I mean, even as I say it, I feel guilty that I implemented that. I didn’t implement it. I ran that policy that had been set into place for such a long time because based on today’s standards, the quality of life with something like that is just dismal.
That was not the expectation all of our stylists were expected to uphold, but for an assistant in their first year working, that’s what it looked like.
To me, that is unacceptable. Today, the quality of life is just too important for people. Now we’ve come to realize that as it turns out, this industry is not one where the harder you work and the more dues you pay, the more money you make. Some people are 20 years into this industry still trying to pay their dues. That’s bonkers. We’re past paying our dues at that point. That’s just a broken system and model. Flexible hours that allows them to live their life.
Then I thought this was interesting. Number two is working from different locations.
I have a story about this and I’ll keep this one brief. I’m probably going to elaborate on a different episode.
There’s a service provider I see. I won’t say what service I get with them because I don’t want to out them in case anybody that they work with listens to this. A service provider I see. This person is paid on commission, 50% split, which is not bad. I actually happened to see her yesterday and she told me, “Hey, I have started taking clients at this other location if you ever want to come check me out there.”
I’m asking all the questions, “Why did you go to another location? Tell me everything.” She was like, “I’m frustrated that I can never make more than a 50% split,” which I will do a full podcast episode on how to pay your stylist more than a 50% split. That’ll come, but “I can’t make more than a 50% split.” Essentially there’s no growth path or plan for her.
She said, “The schedule’s super rigid. It’s extremely structured and I wanted a place where I could grow with flexibility.”
So this stylist now work—that’s actually not a hair stylist. I said stylist, but I openly say I don’t have my hair done anywhere. My daughter and I do it in my bathroom. This is not a stylist, but this person now has two locations they work out of and the second location is undercover. Basically, they’re lying to their boss because they want to build business the way they want to.
Now for me, it makes me sad because why can’t this person, if they choose to work seven days a week to make more money, I mean legally they’re entitled to do that. Why is there so much secrecy? Why does it have to be like that?
Some of you as owners are like, “Oh my gosh, it’s because they’re going to siphon the business off of you.” Business cannot be stolen. You should know and understand that.
Here’s the proof: I will not be going to the service provider’s new location much as I would love to support them. I go to the location I go to because I like it. We can unpack all of that and I’ll probably do a full unpack on another episode, but it’s sad that this person now has to lie to their owner and live this double secret life because the owner’s going to flip out and lose their mind if they’re working at another job.
Do you know how many people in the United States work more than one job? But in our industry it has to be top secret. It’s so strange. It doesn’t have to be that way and if we can be more open-minded and realize there’s more than enough to go around, if you have built a beautiful salon, no one’s going to steal your clients, no one’s going to steal your staff.
If you’re insecure about sustaining clients and stylists at your salon, it’s generally a leadership issue and looking at what can I do to beef myself up as a leader is where I would start.
Number three, Gen Z is used to instant gratification. It’s simply the world they live in. They’re used to Amazon Prime. You can download—remember, does anybody remember—again, I’m going to age myself. I remember knowing when an artist that I like was dropping a new CD and they would run promotions about the CD on MTV for weeks leading up to it, and then we’d all go down to Tower Records and buy the CD, and it was all this anticipation. Well, now an artist drops a new album and you have it on Spotify in 2.5 seconds.
They’re living in this instant gratification world. You don’t have to like it. You just have to understand that’s all they know. They don’t remember going to Tower Records. They don’t remember waiting weeks and weeks and weeks to get a CD or an album. That doesn’t exist—or cassette tape, if you will. It doesn’t exist for them. It doesn’t compute.
I remember when I told my daughter that if I had to call home, I had to find a payphone to use. The amount of questions she had about the payphone, how I would find one, how much time it took, it blew her mind. They just don’t understand.
So when I say instant gratification, I mean they want to promote quickly and they want to know how. They want to have reviews monthly.
I’ve been coaching a quarterly conversations in my company. We are shifting to monthly conversations.
Income growth. It needs to happen fast. There needs to be a clear cut path and plan, and they need to know they’re in the driver’s seat on that.
Next, Gen Z prioritizes autonomy. The ability to—and let me share with you the definition: the ability to make your own decisions without being controlled by anyone else. Super strict rules, micromanagement, things like control of the schedule, it doesn’t feed into that autonomy that they’re craving, and this is where they get a difficult reputation is that people say they’re challenging to work with. No, they’re just not sheep. They don’t just listen to orders and do them. They have their own ideas and they want to say, “I want to work. This is what works for me. This is the time I’d like to have. I will grind for you. Here’s what I’m all about.”
What I find to be interesting is let’s say you have a Gen Z and they’re like, “I don’t want to work Saturdays at all.” For me, I would say, “Okay, no worries. You don’t want to work Saturdays, fair. I’m going to give you 90 days. If in 90 days, you can build up a Tuesday through Friday clientele that, by the end of the 90 day period, produces $3,000 a month in services, you can keep your schedule like that. If at the end of the 90 days, you’re not doing $3,000 in services a month, you must pick up a Saturday. Deal?” And I would make a deal with that person.
The thing about Gen Z is they’re very motivated that way. If I give them the opportunity to meet a goal within 90 days, and if they do it, they get to be in the driver’s seat on that success, the outcome, all of it, they’re likely to do it.
Gen Z is very motivated in that way. They like working towards a goal. The problem is we as an industry are not that great at setting goals. We’re like, “Well, the goal is to build a clientele, go for it.” That’s like me telling a business person, “Well, your goal is to create a successful business. Go.” That goal is way too big and obscure and not tangible. You have to give them more micro goals and then reward them for getting there.
Lastly, Gen Z is deeply motivated by purpose. They don’t want to just work to work. They want to feel like they’re making an impact. They want to feel like they’re working for a business that has values and beliefs.
Let me tell you what is not a value here at the salon: “We’re a big family.” That’s not values. That’s not what they’re looking for. “We like to uplift our community.” Not values, not what they’re looking for. You have to dig deeper than that. What is the impact? What is your mission? What is your vision? Where is this salon going? How can each Gen Z stylist who works for you help to further that mission? That’s the kind of work they like to be a part of. In Thriving Leadership, we show you how to do all of that, but it’s really important that they’re not just working to work, they’re working towards something.
Let’s talk about that motivation and getting them working towards something.
I believe that motivating Gen Z is centered around purpose and meaning, personal growth and work-life balance. With purpose and meaning, I’m a huge proponent of the growth path and plan for stylists. Most salons struggle to build one that motivates. Today, I’m finding that Gen Z stylists are not super motivated by things like level systems. They’re not super motivated by ideas that in two years you can get here and in four years you can get there and then you’ll be diamond platinum certified. That’s not it.
A truly motivational growth path that shows them when this happens, this will be the outcome. You can do this as fast, as slow as you want to.
The other thing we have to be able to check at the door is the ego. This is very hard. A lot of stylists who are millennials or Gen Xers feel a little threatened by Gen Z, and I totally understand. Here’s what you have to understand: If you’re a millennial or a Gen Xer or a boomer who’s become complacent or comfortable or set in your ways—let’s just say I’m set in my ways to a degree. The longer we stay set in our ways, the more likely it is Gen Z is going to outearn us, outperform us, and outdo us. You cannot be upset if a Gen Z stylist is charging $10 more than you are if you’re using a truly factored pricing system like I coached to. If you’re doing it based on the data and the data says somebody who joined the industry 20 years after you should be making more than they should be making more, but our ego won’t let us do that. You need to check that at the door.
That has to be part of the growth path. Some people are going to pass other people by. Oh, well, supporting something bigger than themselves is another thing that goes back to that purpose and meeting.
Again, what does your salon business stand for? “We stand to build up stylists.” Okay, what does that mean and how do you do it? “We provide them education.” What kind of education? “Well, it changes year to year.” Nope, it just has to be more structured than that. It can’t be this obscure concept. It has to be concrete if we’re going to motivate these stylists around it.
Also with purpose and meaning, individual contributions matter. I remember at our salon, oh my gosh, we loved all of our stylists and all of our assistants deeply. There was no doubt our reception team, there was love in that building, there’s no doubt about it. But there was this cog-in-the-machine factor too. I’m not going to lie.
And with cogs in the machine, it was a little bit more like we are a team. We need each other. That was beautiful in a lot of ways, but there wasn’t a ton of opportunity for individual contribution growth.
For example, if I was to have a salon today, I would tell an assistant on their first day working with me, “So glad you’re here. We have several promotional paths. One of the promotional paths is social media management path. We have a path for you to become a departmental trainer. We have a path for you to become a senior mentor educational stylist. We have a salon managerial path for you,” like allowing them to find those skill sets that they are the strongest in and then really develop those into something that they own and feel like they’re making an impact. That’s huge.
If somebody just clocks in for the day and then is told to shampoo some heads and sweep some floors and clean up and make sure you support the stylist, that doesn’t feel like meaningful work. I know that if you’re a millennial or a Gen X, we say, “Well, they got to start somewhere.” They’re not going to accept the same journey we accepted. Please, please, please, if you’ve not already done so, go back and listen to podcast episode number 235 and you’ll understand why we can’t give them the same experience that we had and expect the same result. It’s unreasonable. We have to modify so it makes sense for where this generation sees themselves going.
Number two motivator is going to be personal growth. This is something that I actually did figure out quite early on in my managerial career. I started doing this when I was probably 26 or 27 years old, so it’s been a hot, hot minute for me, over a decade.
What I came to realize is that not everybody is motivated by making more money, and I think our industry and salon management and leadership, when we have all these systems where it’s like make more money, get more referrals, get more prebooks, sell more retail. That is not motivating to a lot of people.
What is motivating to a lot of people is moving out of their parents’ house for the first time, flying first class to Australia, paying for their dream wedding themselves, buying their first home. Those are the kind of things, buying the first car that you ever bought yourself. Those things are motivating.
Whenever I led my salon team, I never said, “Let’s get you to make your next jump. Let’s get you to make another $500.” It was like, “Let’s get you that Range Rover payment. What does that look like? You went to the dealership, okay, they said 600 bucks a month. Let’s plan that out. How are we going to make that happen? I want you driving up in that Range in the next six months.” That was motivating, and I could get my stylist excited about that because that’s something that matters to them.
Whether I think that a Range Rover is a good investment or not, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what I want. It matters what they want. If you can motivate your stylist towards the goals that matter to them, everybody’s going to win.
Remember that money is simply a tool. It shouldn’t be the final destination.
Creating personal growth paths and plans and showing how you and your salon can help them to get there and then actually following through on that hugely beneficial.
Last is going to be motivating them with work-life balance. I’m a huge fan of this. I think that sliding schedules should be able to be earned in our industry. My daughter, for example, she’s in her first few months in the industry. She’s only ever worked Monday through Friday. Now heading into the new year, she’s shifting to a Tuesday through Saturday schedule, which is fine. She feels fine about it. Then in another six months, her schedule will probably change again. She’s never once complained. She’s totally happy with it. But what she is able to have is lots of work-life balance. If she needs to leave early to pick up her boyfriend from the airport, they’re fine with that. They find coverage, they make it work. And my company, if you want to take three days off because you want to go on a last-minute vacation, we make it work. You got to make it work.
And I know a lot of you were like, “Yeah, but with a clientele, you can’t make it work.” When you coach to business the way I mentor to, you and your team should not be booked out weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. That’s the 1996 of running your clientele and it keeps you trapped and it keeps you cheap. It keeps you broke.
When you’ve adapted to a more modern way of running a salon business, you don’t have to worry about those same things. You can have that freedom and flexibility and like I gave the example of if I have somebody who—and this is how it works in my company today, I do not micromanage anybody’s hours. I do not micromanage anybody’s comings and goings. I micromanage everybody’s KPIs. If you are not achieving your benchmarks, I cannot keep you here.
That’s how you should be leading your team as well. If they cannot stick to their growth path and plan, unfortunately, there’s no longer a place for them.
But here’s the rub: Most salon leaders are too afraid to make those decisions, not organized enough to roll out the growth plan and path, and then they blame the generation for being difficult to manage. They’re not difficult to manage. They expect to be led, and this is that call to leadership.
How are you going to recognize and reward your team? What kind of schedule can you offer to them? What kind of growth plan can you create? What I want you to know about Gen Z is they’re actually highly motivated, but they’re not motivated in the same way that we were when we joined the industry if you’re anything like myself. I encourage you to walk into this beautiful new year with the ideology of learning and growing and staying curious, asking your Gen Zs why are they here? Why did you get into the industry? What were you looking to make happen? Thinking about if you were a young person looking to work at a great salon now, what would you want to see from your salon? Are you currently offering those things?
This is the invitation to get curious. I think Gen Z will likely be the hardest-working, most successful generation we have ever seen hit the industry. I’m very excited to see them grow and expand, and I really want you to be a part of that.
Any questions that have spurred from this episode, I’d love for you to leave a rating and review. Share this on Instagram stories, tag me in, let me know what is cooking in your world, and as I always like to say, so much love, happy business building. I’ll see you on the next one.
