Creative HEAD July/August 2019

#BusinessEdit
KEN’S CLINIC
GOT A BUSINESS HEADACHE? LET KEN WEST, DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS
EXPERTS 3•6•5, OFFER A PERSONAL PRESCRIPTION
KEN’S DIAGNOSIS
A massive question, Terry! I’m a firm believer in the
employment model – what follows is my personal
opinion and I appreciate that many may disagree with me.
First, there is a moral issue that cannot be overlooked.
If salons and stylists are taking the self-employed option to
reduce the amount of taxes being paid, in any of the various
forms, then sooner or later the HMRC spotlight is bound
to fall on the revenue received from our industry. I would
welcome this as maybe then an equal playing field could be
created for all. At the moment that is far
from the case.
The issue here is the lack of
policing of the HMRC guidelines
that exist for the self-employed
model. Currently, for a stylist to be
seen as self-employed, the salon
they operate in cannot control the
hours they work, the prices they
charge, the products they
use, the clients they
serve, the holidays
they take, their
education and skill
levels, nor
their culture.
Clients also need
to be made aware
of the fact that they
are being served by a
self-employed stylist
and that any complaints
“Our biggest challenge is
recruiting or keeping team
members due to self-employment.
As a company, we offer a
competitive commission scheme,
lots of training, shoots, a pension
scheme and fun events. We’ve only ever been
or wanted to be an employed salon, but do we
now have to give in to the pressure?”
TERRY BOLDERO AND CAROLINE FILBY,
BOLDERO & FILBY
TO READ
MORE FROM
TERRY AND
CAROLINE TURN
TO PAGE 62
or other issues relating to the service they receive are the
responsibility of the stylist and not the salon. I believe
that in most of the salons operating a self-employed
model this is far from the reality! You only need to read
the conversations on social media sites to realise this. I
regularly see salon owners with self-employed stylists using
the words, “team” and “staff” and yet to be self-employed
means you are on nobody’s team nor are you anyone’s staff.
I see owners asking advice on what to do about issues
they have with self-employed stylists and yet the fact
is they have little or no control over those stylists at all.
Doing so contravenes the very concept of self-employment.
Technically you can’t even provide any education to a selfemployed
stylist unless they pay you to do so.
There could also be, as yet unchallenged, issues relating
to GDPR and who actually owns the client data, who
controls that data and what happens to it if a self-employed
stylist moves on.
So, why do I believe in the employed model? Because
I believe in creating brands that can grow, cultures to be
proud of, careers and continuous education for professional
teams of people that benefit from the security of being
employed by a solid and profitable business.
Salon owners need to rethink the employment packages
they offer. The underlying challenge we have in our
industry is pricing. To employ the right people you need
to offer the right rewards. To offer the right rewards you
need to charge the right prices. To charge the right prices
you need to offer an amazing guest experience. To offer an
amazing guest experience you need to employ the right
people. And so it goes, round and round…
DO YOU HAVE A BUSINESS HEADACHE YOU’D LIKE KEN TO HELP WITH?
Email him directly on KenW@365Hair.com or tweet us at @creativeheadmag
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