HJ VOICENOTES

Salon owner Lloyd Court discusses the repercussions of the budget on apprentices and the next generation

LLOYD COURT

“I FEEL DEEPLY FOR SALONS WITH LOTS OF APPRENTICES. RATHER THAN CATASTROPHISING, WE SHOULD BE BEING STRATEGIC AND FOCUS ON UNITING”

On a personal level, as someone who has been an employee and is now an employer, I can see how the Autumn budget has affected our industry. I understand what the government is trying to do. It’s called trickle-up economics. Giving people who earn less money more money to help stimulate the economy.

But the fact of the matter is the cost of having apprentices has increased enormously. It's going to cost us another £35-40k for apprentices next year, that’s not taking into account the salary rises for other members of staff too. We have nine stylists and we’re affected, so I can’t imagine what it’s like to have more.

In terms of how it’s affecting our clients, we have noticed that our stylists who charge less have seen a reduction in clients, because their clients are the ones feeling the pinch the most. In contrast, the clients of myself and my senior staff have remained stable.

I’ve been really worried about apprenticeships for a while now. We need to look at why hairdressing hasn’t looked like an appealing sector. We have generations that can’t relate to one another and always say “well in my day you had to work xx hours a week, on £xx”. To be honest, when I was an apprentice, I think that all the menial jobs I did have made me a better stylist. I was being paid £103 a week, which even then was not enough to live on, especially in London, whilst the generations before me had multimillion pound houses. It felt like there was no way they could understand my situation. As employers we need to focus on bridging that gap.

This constant in-fighting between employed and self-employed salons isn’t helping either. Co-working spaces are exciting and innovative, but the most important thing for an apprentice is stability. I know some salons have a mix of employed and self-employed staff and they have apprentices, but I do wonder how the apprentices are able to build a client base in that environment.

In an employer’s mind, a stylist takes six years to grow – two years for their apprenticeship, two years for them to build a column, then two years spent honing their craft. It’s an investment, but a worthwhile one.

So what can we do? Are there areas of your apprenticeships you can tweak? Are the trainees making you money? Are you sharing apprentices in the salon and encouraging everyone to pitch in? We have four apprentices now, but we will probably only look to take on two next year. When they have qualified, I have to find a place for them in the salon to make their training costs worthwhile, so I need to be cautious.

I really feel for salons with a lot of apprentices, but rather than catastrophising, we should be being strategic and focus on uniting.