Suffering from seasonal salon stress? How to survive this busy period
Stress Boffin’s Alex Crow offers advice on dealing with salon stress
during the busy festive season.
Working in a salon or spa can be a wonderfully rewarding experience, but at times it might become challenging or stressful, especially at times when your workplace is even busier than usual, like at Christmas.
If you love your salon job but are ‘rushed off your feet' feeling overwhelmed or stressed, these feelings are not uncommon. Work-related stress accounts for over half (57%) of all working days lost to ill health in the last 12 months*. The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) defines stress as ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them'.
If you feel you're not coping with work demands and the consistent demands of customers, you're not alone. You might need to talk to your boss about your work and hours and also ask for help and training.
Stress can affect people differently but there are six main areas relating to salon/spa work stress:
- Your role and responsibilities in the salon/spa
- Excessive customer demands
- Lack of personal control
- Changes in the salon/spa
- The need for more management support
- Your relationships with clients, colleagues, and managers
Signs of stress might be:
- Headaches
- Sleeplessness
- Muscular tension
- Stomach disorders
- Skin disorders
This is in addition to wanting to leave your job, arguing with colleagues or senior staff, staying off sick or having duvet days.
Dealing with seasonal stress
The holiday season brings further demands and needs to be planned for; ask your boss what plans they have in place over Christmas and New year to ensure the salon runs smoothly and customers feel pampered and satisfied.
Make sure you get enough rest and breaks for lunch, water and tea throughout the day so you're able to cope with more demands and get some exercise even if it's just a walk.
Reframing techniques and training might be worth considering. I believe that a proactive stress strategy is essential to any business. This involves giving people techniques that they can use to de-stress (often mindfulness-based), creating an ‘anchor' to help them when stressed and also powerful re-framing ideas that can turn around the way they deal with their everyday problems.
Alex Crow is a qualified NLP practitioner, Hypnotist, and Mindfulness Teacher, and founder of Stress Boffin. He's happy to travel to your salon to train your staff on how to manage stress and stressful customers. Courses can be booked for 1 hour - 2 hours, full or half days or weekends for up to 30 people (no minimum number). Visit
stressboffin.com.
*Source HSE.gov.uk Across Great Britain, work-related stress accounts for over half (57%) of all working days lost to ill health. In the last 12 months, over 600,000 workers reported suffering from stress, depression or anxiety, caused or made worse by work.
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