In this episode Nathan talks to three of the founding members of the Salon Employers Association (SEA) – Toby Dicker of the Chapel Group, Edward Hemmings of Alan D Education and Stephen Nurse of Daniel Galvin – to discuss how the hair industry needs changes to make it a fair playing field for salons who employ their teams.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- We initially set up a WhatApp group to try to make sense of the Government’s guidelines to Covid, because they were so confused and the language they used wasn’t very hairdressing friendly. We used it to make sure we were all on the same page, opening and closing at the same time, implementing the government’s guidelines in a similar fashion. It then grew organically from that when we noticed trade was declining and cost of employment was going up which led to a much wider conversation and we linked arms and embarked on this journey.
- All we’re asking for is fairness and parity, if you’re running a traditional business hairdressing model, it’s impossible to compete with a salon down the road where the vast majority of the team is self-employed. We have to pay National Insurance contributions, holiday pay, pension… it’s not a level playing field. We’re not anti-self-employed, but we’re asking please, please make it fair.
- I’d much rather take on 19-20 year olds who have got much more about them, but we’re forced to take on 16 year olds – which is age discrimination – because they are cheaper for us. That’s just stupid. Perhaps we need to make changes to the funding so perhaps the government covers some of the older people’s salaries, and/or a potential type of training bond which is formalised in our industry which encourages them to continue working for us so we can claw back some of the £30,000-40,000 training cost.
- Salon owners should join us, follow us on social media, help us every time we put out a poll or survey or questionnaire. We’re at the right point in time to make this work. The more information that we have to go back to BEIS and Government with, the better and the more timely that information is. With that information we then build traction with the government, we’re not just going to go away.
BEST MOMENTS
‘It brought a certain industry together in a way it never had before, instead of being incredibly competitive with each other.’
‘The government has been very generous with grants over the last couple of years, but the last big one finished last April, which was £4000 per salon owner. There’s no benefit to “finishing” someone now.’
‘The only reason for doing the self-employed route, as a salon owner, is that it’s massively tax-beneficial and the legalities and moralities of that are there to be discussed. If we were paying less or they were paying an equal amount, there really wouldn’t be a problem.’
‘We’d like to see VAT reduced to 9%. Like it is in Ireland because what we’re selling is time. VAT as an input/output tax doesn’t work for us.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
The Salon Employers Association has been created to represent professional salons and protect and preserve the future of the industry through ensuring parity and campaigning for reform on fiscal & tax matters which directly affect the sector.
Website: http://www.salonemployersassociation.co.uk/
Instagram: @salonemployersassociation – Visit them here and answer
