How Employee Attitude Problems Affect Your Spa Business – Even When its a Rare or Temporary Problem

Do employee attitude problems affect your entire spa? 

Think about whenever you have a splinter or sliver in your hand or foot.  Your average splinter is tiny – so small that in many cases, you cannot even see it.

Yet, it hurts and if you ignore, it gets worse!  Why?  Part of the reason is that we usually get splinters in our hands or feet – areas that we use the most out of our entire external bodies.  Part of the reason also is, though, that our feet and hands have more creases, bends, joints and connection points than any other part of our body.  So when you get a splinter, chances are that the splinter will be constantly irritating the region it has entered, and while it is small it is also sharp.  If you do not take the time to remove it, it is a near constant source of irritation and the constant irritation makes it feel much bigger, jagged and painful than it actually is.

Attitude problems affect organizations the same way – and are especially painful in any service industry including spa management.  If one employee is struggling with an attitude issue, their approach to management, work and customers will be noticed and affect virtually everyone they come in contact with.  This will have ripple effects and soon, that one employee, if left unchecked will in some way be influencing the work and approach of virtually any employee in the spa – whether they have to work with them or not.

Let’s suppose Andrea, a spa employee, has a fight with her husband and comes to work distraught and angry.  As part of her bad day, she snaps at a co-worker, who sulks until they forget the exchange and that affects how they are doing their work.  Andrea also makes it clear to customers that she is distracted, even irate and their experience at the spa is much less than they anticipated or expected – bad for business.  Eventually, the problem reaches the ears of management and they have to stop what they are doing to go address the issue with Andrea.  By just one employee having a poor attitude, at every facet of the spa is affected.  Left unchecked, these types of problems can lead to decreased morale, business-wide and larger problems down the lined as customers start to talk about what a great facility the spa is, but that the “staff is less than enthusiastic.”