An overworked or unappreciated employee is not going to offer the guest experience you want them to. Here’s how employee experience impacts guest experience.
Guest experience at a spa is dependent on a confident and empowered employee who is comfortable with their role, engaged, and feeling positive. This is essential. Employee experience impacts guest experience because an employee who is feeling strain, is overworked, is unclear on what they are supposed to be doing, or is feeling unappreciated is not going to offer the guest experience you want them to. This is why your employee experience matters.
According to the IBM Employee Experience Index, “employees who experience a sense of belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness and vigor are more likely to perform at higher levels and contribute “above and beyond” expectations. They are also less likely to quit.”
In a global survey of more than 23,000 employees in 45 countries and territories across different industries and job functions, it was found that:
- Workers who reported that they worked for companies with high employee experience scores were more likely to report high levels of work performance than those working for companies with lower scores.
- Employees working for companies with lower employee experiences scores were more than twice as likely to want to leave compared to those with more positive experiences.
- Employees working for companies with high employee experiences scores were almost twice as likely to report putting in increased discretionary effort than people with negative experiences.
How employee experience impacts guest experience
It’s easy to see why this matters and how it applies to your spa.
High performance employees increase revenue and create engaging guest experiences. They keep spaces clean, keep retail sales moving, and help maximize occupancy.
Employee retention and guest experience
Lower turnover means fewer associated expenses, like recruitment, hiring, and training costs. It’s also a key element of creating an exceptional guest experience
Spa guests commonly become attached to one service provider and enjoy seeing that person during repeat visits. When service providers leave, it disrupts these relationships and guests might even follow that person to their new place of employment. Employees who remain with an organization build relationships.
Also, team members who become familiar with guests are more able to personalize treatments and appointments with each person, which is the cornerstone of guest experience. A rotating cast of faces does not instill a sense of calm confidence in an organization.
Employees are more likely to remain with companies that offer a good employee experience.
Discretionary effort and going above and beyond
We also know, from speaking again and again to top leaders in the industry, what it takes to rank among the top spas in the world: discretionary effort. Amanda Frasier, Forbes Travel Guide’s Executive Vice President of Standards & Ratings, once told Spa Executive in an interview “While having a beautiful facility is absolutely necessary, spas that go above and beyond when it comes to service rise naturally in our system.”
This is only possible when employees are putting in extra discretionary effort, because that is what it means to go “above and beyond.” Employees are more likely to do that for employers who value them and treat them well.
Creating a good employee experience at your spa
A lot goes into creating a good employee experience. We believe it involves the following:
- Treating your employees like your internal guests: Treat your team with the same level of consideration that you want them to treat your guests and they will pay it forward.
- Create an amazing company culture: Some universal elements of a good company culture are open communication, a collaborative environment, trust, and a shared vision. You also need to find what makes your company unique and how that can become a part of your culture.
- Understanding the employee journey: Every experience in the employee journey, from the hiring process, through training and onboarding, working at your spa and, ultimately, leaving it, should be a positive one.
- Creating an environment of trust and empowerment. This means including everyone in decision-making processes and empowering your team to make necessary decisions without having to approach management every single time.
- Supporting career growth and development. Opportunities for growth and advancement are an important part of every employee’s happiness and satisfaction. Nobody likes to feel like they are at a standstill.
Provide your employees with tools, resources, and support they need to succeed
Creating an excellent employee experience means being mindful of many things, like scheduling, work-life balance, and avoiding driving your employees to burnout. It means putting energy and focus into training and onboarding, so that people are comfortable in and familiar with their roles, and communicating company goals so they’re familiar with those too. And it means performance managing your teams so they have the opportunity learn and grow in their roles, offering the coaching, among other things, that they need to succeed.
Provide your employees with what they need to succeed and invest in your employee experience. Go above and beyond for your team and your team will go above and beyond for your guests – and that is what guest experience is all about.
Your spa software: Your spa management software can help with all of these things. Scheduling should be intuitive and accessible from anywhere, while performance management tools should help you track goals and KPIs in order to communicate with your team about where they are doing well and where they need to improve. Your spa software should also facilitate personalization and maintain customer relationships by allowing staff to keep record of customer information and access that information when needed.
Your spa software should also be easy to use and intuitive, and it should make everyone’s life easier, rather than harder. Book4Time is all of these things and more. Learn more or book a demo.
