Mini Moment #5 - Sick Leave & Salon Culture

 Transcript

 Welcome back to the inner sanctum, Salon Rising the podcast mini moments brought to you by timely.

Hello.

Oh gross. Hello, Jennifer. I know, I just

was feeling like maybe we'd do a little like full name thing. It feels weird. Hello, Jennifer. Be this. Hello. I love it when you call, when I know that you're angry at me because

you're like, Jennifer, I love in the first podcast when we were talking about this not long ago, that we blank out my surname because it's not my surname.

It's like, welcome Samara blank. And then it goes real far. Like, because we didn't wanna say my surname anymore 'cause it's not my surname anymore. I did notice that too. It was funny.

Had a

husband, don't now. Great. Sorry. You've got something better. Okay, thanks. So my boyfriend, so okay, no, let's get back on track.

Mini moment. We are gonna talk about sick leave. Yeah. Okay. We're gonna talk

about sick leave. Why Jen?

Cause you are off on sick leave at the moment. I am currently, well, I'm off on annual leave, which could be sick. I don't know. Just had my boobs done. Yeah. So anyone that's listening, I had big boobs and I've had a reduction.

So, I had that done two and a half weeks ago, and the first 10 days I regretted every bit of it. Yeah. I skipped into that operation thinking that it was gonna be peachy because I had had three cesareans and it was not peachy for anyone who's considering it. It was not peachy. And it hurt a lot and it still hurts, and I'm still healing and I've gotta go into the Z and work tomorrow, which I'm not looking forward to.

But. It's going to make a big impact because obviously we have such physical jobs and also was sick of kind of my boots hitting my knees. So just thought it was time.

But I do think it's gonna have a huge physical impact, don't you? Because I think that even when we think back to some of the neck and shoulder issues that you've had over the years, like that, that's hugely related.

Yes.

Yes. And I have birthed and bed three children. And you know, just being able to take a lot of that weight off. Yeah. And 500 grams was taken out, which is ob like the kids were like, how much is that? And like Lee started throwing them wally packets to be like, this is how much weight that is. Like sometimes you don't realize how heavy that is.

Yeah. It's been a big recovery, but I've also had staff members that go through this as well, so I did it 'cause another staff member did it. I have always wanted to do it. But one of my other staff members did it 'cause she needs to do it before she's gonna have implants. And you know, it's one of those things we, I thought, oh, it's probably a really good topic to talk on sick leave.

Because depending on where you're at, and I've had conversations with clients about this will be how much it ignores you, you know, sick. How much annoys you when somebody is sick? What does that look like for you? I also controversial think that sick leave is an incredible. Detector on how good your culture is.

Interesting. Yeah, that's really interesting. I see where you're going

with that. Yeah, I do. There was a period of time that for maybe like I calculated it for maybe six months. I think there was, I think I paid out about $12,000, $13,000. Might even be more, I forget the statistics now of sick leave. Yeah. And the previous six months after that, when things changed, I paid out too.

Oh my goodness. And when I had a conversation with my team about it, it was because they were mentally exhausted. Yeah. Okay. So I really think that if someone is having constant sick leave, I think it's also important to really temp check in. With what's happening culturally in your business is something making them feel more exhausted being at work than what potentially is?

Yeah, not being at work. Not that I ever think, thought any of my team were faking it. I'd never thought that, but more so they were mentally exhausted, which then physically exhausted them. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I, I definitely think I've experienced that and I can say that from hand on heart of something I have been through.

But sick leave used to annoy the absolute bejesus outta me. It doesn't affect me anymore. It's very rare that my team are sick. And when they are, I know they are. And I think it's gonna be one of those things. It's always going to be annoying. We have clientele. Yeah. Always going to be a shuffle and a move around.

My boundaries are contact me as early as possible. So I sometimes wake up to my team texting me at 2:00 AM my phone's on silent. Text me at 2:00 AM I'd rather you text me at 2:00 AM and go back to sleep and not have to wake up at 6:00 AM than what I would then you wait, text me at eight.

You know? Because for me, if I have a message on my phone, when I wake up, I have time to deal with it. To, yeah, exactly. If I get a message mid, getting my children ready. And getting them to school, my entire day goes to shambles. So the earlier the better. If you wake up 2:00 AM and you are feeling like crap, or you're spewing, or whatever it is, message me.

Then the earlier the

better. And I think that big shift, you know, from not feeling

like you need to come and improve that you're sick or don't ever come in and prove to me you're sick. Yeah, just be sick. Because if you're proving it and I have to cancel your whole day on the day. Yeah. It's the worst thing someone can do for me.

I'm like, I know you don't fake it. So if you're sick, don't come. And if you progressively get worse through the day, come and let me know you're progressively getting worse and start to move yourself out.

Yeah.

'Cause again, if you have a team that is like trustworthy and loyal, they're not gonna do it in order to stuff you up.

I think the other thing on the other side of this for your team is if you handle it really beautifully and really diplomatically, your team will want to come back sooner.

Yeah.

My team always is really sweet. When we've had, you know, team members be off sick, none of my team are ever at home being like, yeah, I'm living my life.

Suck shit guys because they know the level of pressure that they put on everybody else when they're off sick.

Yeah.

And so at which point no one ever takes the piss because, and then normally there's always messages that come through. Like, thank you so much guys for having my back this week. Thank you for supporting me.

I know it's been hard on the other side of that. If you have to cancel clients in order to make your day not hectic for your team, do it. I had a staff member off two days last week, and as much as I could, I shifted into other clients. But if that client wants to be with that specific hairdresser or you know that by doing that, you are going to put so much pressure on your team that if anything goes wrong, it's gonna blow up.

Don't do it. Yeah, it's a hair appointment. Just shift it out into the following week. You know, and I also then made sure I sent them pizza because I was like, the day's gonna get busy, they're gonna be running. And I actually ended up coming in that day as well, just to be that little. I couldn't do much. I just had surgery.

I did a full head of foils. But just to be, they hadn't eaten. So by me being there and doing that full head of foils, it meant everyone had a chance to have a bit of a break. And by the end of it, the evening really cleared out. So everyone would've been fine, but by me showing up and just being here to love them when I had the capacity to do that just also means the world.

'cause then they're not absolutely flogged with no one caring what that looks like. Yeah.

I think it's really important how we handle sick leave. Yeah, in order to how our people will feel with it. Because there's also times that you are going to be sick and that's okay. 'cause your team will have your back if you and need to be unwell as well. Yes. Do you have thoughts on this, Jen?

I mostly agree with what you're saying.

I think, you know, gone are the days where, and I mean I've only had to encounter sick leave just recently. 'cause before I didn't have staff, so it was just me. I was either sick or I was at work. Like that was fine. But I had that. Same conversation with one of my young ones where she got sick at work, like just went down like a ton of breaks.

I was like, you need to go home like now. Like literally don't breathe in the same space as me. Mm-hmm. Step backwards, slowly. Get in a car and get out of this door right now and I'm

gonna Glen 20 the shit out his place. Yeah.

But and like I said to her, I was like, she's like, I'll, I'll see how I am in the morning.

I was like, no, you're not coming to work tomorrow. And then also I'll talk to you tomorrow night and then we can decide whether or not, but yeah, that's a good one. So I do that

with my team. So contact me by that two or three that afternoon. Yeah. To let me know if I need to reschedule the next day or if you are feeling okay.

Yeah, because don't contact me again at six 30 in the morning. Like if you are not feeling great now, you're not gonna wake up tomorrow morning at six 30 feeling like peaches. So I'd rather you say, no, I need another day off. So that I can rearrange things. Exactly. Yeah. And I think this is another financial point, right?

If you can't physically afford to have a staff member off sick, you've got so much more of a problem going on than sick leave. Yeah. So get your business to a point that financially can support when your team are off sick because you have to pay them for sick leave and then it won't feel like such a stretch when your team member has to be off sick.

Yeah.

And yeah. Support them, they'll support you back in the meantime, but have the boundaries in place so everybody feels supported. I am always very apologetic to a client, but also don't leave room for a client to have a go at me about it. So my messages are normally say like, Hey Jen, I'm so incredibly sorry for this inconvenience, but unfortunately so and so's off sick today.

I have two options for you so I can either fit you in a at the same time or a little bit later. Or I can reschedule you for when she's back next week. You let me know what suits you.

Yeah.

'Cause even the other day I had a staff member off and her morning was booked. So I ended up moving two staff members that were on their appointments down later because I knew both of those clients would be okay moving later, so that if it did happen, it could just slide across without any issues.

So rather than waiting until the day of knowing that she's off sick and not having nowhere to move them to. I just moved things down later and then just allowed my staffers to be able to, you know, move over and look after those clientele as well.

Yeah,

yeah.

So it's just preempting that you can do things like that as a salon owner, so it's like preempting those things so that it allows you to be able to have those little safety guards.

There's also like other options. As well. Like, Sarah's relief hairdresser. Yes. You know, like there's, there's things that you can do Yes.

And have in place that if, if you have no other options. Yes. Like, there's definitely people who have, there's nowhere else, you know, they don't have enough of a team to put anybody in anywhere else. Yeah. And yeah, the relief hairdresser is amazing for such a idea, that kind of situation. Yeah,

absolutely. When everything's gone pear shaped.

Absolutely. And just, remember that. Don't overwhelm your team because it's only going to make more people sick. Yeah. So if someone's off sick and you jam the rest of them for the whole week, then there is exhausted,

then they'll come down with the same thing. Yeah.

So it is okay to move people.

And it's okay to adjust people and just be really transparent and like, this is what I can offer you. I'm so sorry, because it doesn't happen often. Yeah. And 99% of clients will be okay with it. And if they're not, you have to be okay if they're not quite for you. Yeah.

Exactly right.

Yeah. Sage advice.

Okay. Well I hope that helps when we talk on sick leave. Yeah. Because it's an important conversation to have. Let us know your thoughts. Yeah.

Thanks guys.