|
Massage therapists seeking
work should be very encouraged by a survey conducted last March by the
International Spa Association (ISPA). This informal poll of the
organization’s members reported: “Overwhelmingly, the No. 1 treatment
for both men and women is massage.”
As a result of this demand for massage services, more therapists are
being sought. And in many cases, these therapists finally have some
choices on where they practice.
The picture isn’t entirely rosy, however. Respect, an intangible quality
in the workplace in addition to pay and benefits, continues to be a
sticking point for some massage therapists who have made the choice to
work at resort spas. In fact, this issue was considered important enough
that it merited a special session entitled: “Bridging the Gap Between
Spa Directors and Massage Therapists” at the 2001 annual ISPA
conference. Ironically, many spa directors who volunteered at that
seminar, including most of those interviewed for this report, are
professional massage therapists.
For this article, I interviewed several spa owners and managers of
first-rate establishments about their employment philosophies. What do
they want from a prospective employee? And what do they offer that job
candidate in return?
After speaking with these experts, several trends became evident,
including the following:
-
As more massage therapists
choose employment in the spa industry over private practice, long-held
ideals of independence in treating private clients clash with
hospitality industry goals of serving spa “guests.”
-
Massage schools are just
beginning to accept the change and adapt to a student body composed of a
larger number of students bound for employee status in spas.
Self-employment in private practice is no longer the goal of most
students enrolling in massage school.
-
Massage therapy continues to
be the most popular service offered by spas small and large, from city
day spas, to hotels, to luxury resorts. Employment opportunities are
growing.
-
Massage therapists in spas
have the opportunity to do a wide range of new treatments that appeal to
widely traveled spa guests who are looking for new and more exotic body
therapies that rely more on specially blended beauty and “anti-aging”
products.
-
Spas expect therapists to be
knowledgeable about the beauty and health products used in the
treatments, and to recommend and sell them to guests as a part of their
job and part of their pay.
-
There is the beginning of a
strong trend to integrate antiaging physicians, dermatologists, plastic
surgeons and other medical professionals into hotel and resort spa
facilities. This is reminiscent of current policies at European health
spas.
-
Spas are luxury facilities,
and the massage treatments listed on their “menus” are expensive.
However, this does not translate directly into higher commissions to
therapists in the way a higher charge would mean higher income to a
therapist in private practice. Spas have moved away from
commission-based pay as being too costly to the spa owner. The
compensation structure most favored by spas is a set amount of money for
each treatment performed, no matter how much the client is paying for
the service.
-
Spa directors keep abreast
of what their competitors are paying therapists, which makes pay scales
increasingly uniform, although the compensation may be structured in
different ways. The harder-working therapist can achieve greater
financial dividends because of financial incentives that reward the
number of treatments performed, and also the amount of products sold.
Therapists who are knowledgeable and trained in more products and
treatments also can expect to earn more and advance faster in a spa.
-
Although a top-earning
therapist can be earning $50,000 per year and more, that only comes with
working long, hard hours, which can result in injury and burnout for
some.
-
Employee policies and
working conditions vary a great deal from one spa to the next. In fact,
a prospective employee should investigate that aspect of employment as
closely as looking at pay and benefits. Employee benefits are a feature
of spa employment for therapists who qualify as full-time.
This piece will discuss
these trends, and offer suggestions so that those MTJ readers wishing to
one day work in a spa environment will know what to expect … and what’s
expected of them.
As mentioned before, the numbers about the demand for massage at resorts
and spas are staggering. ISPA’s detailed “2001 Spa User Studies,”
conducted by Cox Consulting, found that 96 percent of destination spa
visitors, 88 percent of resort/hotel spa guests, and 93 percent of day
spa patrons mentioned massage. Facial, nail and hair treatments were the
next service most frequently mentioned. Body wraps were mentioned by 50
to 60 percent of respondents.
All this demand for massage is a positive development for any massage
therapist considering a spa career. “Employment packages in many spas
are very good,” observes Margaret Avery Moon, NCTMB, president of the
Desert Institute of the Healing Arts, in Tucson, Arizona. Moon is a
regular attendee at ISPA’s yearly conferences. (ISPA’s “2000 Spa
Industry Study,” conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, reported the spa
industry employed approximately 151,000 full-time and part-time
employees, paying out an estimated 48 percent of total revenues in
compensation to spa employees. This same study reported that between
January 1997 and August 2000, the number of spa establishments expanded
49 percent, from 3,817 to 5,689 locations.)
 |
| The compensation
structure most favored by spas is a set amount of money for each
treatment performed. |
In spite of this growing employment opportunity for massage therapists,
there has been little communication between spas and massage schools.
Moon, who was one of only a handful of massage school owners in
attendance at ISPA’s 2001 annual conference, says massage schools tend
to hold the mistaken belief that spas want only “a minimally educated”
graduate.
In fact, some spa people attending the education session at ISPA 2001
complained loudly of too little spa education of massage school
graduates, who they want to be fully trained in the latest treatments
(cutting the expense of hiring trainers to show employees how to perform
the treatments on the job).
Coming to the defense of massage schools, Robert Calvert, one of the
massage representatives joining the education discussion, said schools
“cannot be expected to be current with the latest in worldwide spa
treatments.”
He pointed out that massage schools tend to be conservative when it
comes to introducing new classes to their curriculum. This is also true
for the state regulatory agencies that oversee massage schools.
Moon serves as a member of the ISPA education committee, which has
worked on job profiles and core competencies for spa therapists to
encourage more schools to develop spa curriculums. She is pleased with
increasing communication between her school and the surrounding spas.
And Moon is finding new trends in enrollment at the Desert Institute of
the Healing Arts. “There are more younger people and more people who
want employee status,” she reports. Something that has not changed,
according to Moon, is the typical entering student “who has not received
massage frequently in their life and needs to experience what it feels
like to be a spa client.”
By contrast, today’s spa client is increasingly a well-traveled
individual who has visited a number of spas, is familiar with a range of
massage and bodywork styles, and has come to expect the ultimate in
service and hospitality. One of the criticisms directed at newly
graduated massage therapists, according to Moon, is the lack of a
client-centered approach to match the customer service philosophy that
prevails in spas. For example, she recalled an experience with a
graduate of her own school who specialized in shiatsu massage. His
client was a woman suffering a headache, who wanted him to begin his
touch at her head. But the therapist wanted to start at her feet to
follow the shiatsu protocol he was trained in. Moon had to step in to
tell him to take the client-centered approach—that to meet the client’s
request to start at the head would not compromise the treatment.
 |
| The Nemacolin Woodlands
Resort and Spa, in Farmington, Pennsylvania, has a
32,000-square-foot spa. |
Peggy Wynne Borgman, co-founder of Preston Wynne Day Spa in Saratoga,
California, and a national leader in the spa industry, also has been
pleased to see that relations between massage schools and spas have
taken a turn for the better. “But there was a time when people coming
out of massage school were told that to work in a salon or spa was a
second-rate career,” she recalls. “Now we are seeing the same schools
coming to us wanting to establish connections to place their graduates
in spa jobs.”
The Preston Wynne Spa gave birth some years ago to a busy consulting
practice, putting Wynne in a position to know a good deal about what it
takes to make a spa successful. (See Sidebar, Page 47.)
One massage business in Palm Springs, California, offers its massage
therapists a nice variety of options: They can work in a day spa, a
resort hotel spa, a private home or at a massage therapy center. This
company, All About Massage, is co-owned by Kelly Yamada, a massage
therapist and instructor. Yamada also serves as coordinator for the
Coachella Valley (Palm Springs area) Spa Directors Association,
affording her an overview of the full range of employment practices
across spas in “the desert.”
Yamada and her partner (her
husband, Masaru) have developed multiple income streams, and more
opportunities for massage therapists, through two related businesses.
All About Massage includes the Spa Therapy Center, which offers a full
menu of massage, skin care, hand and foot, and spa treatments. Massage
is the specialty, and therapists are required to have a minimum of 500
hours schooling plus extra training in any specialty they offer. The
center also offers workshops for massage professionals and classes in
infant massage and partner massage. The retail store at the center
carries massage and spa equipment and supplies; massage and skin-care
products; and gift items.
In addition, Desert Massage Associates, the Yamadas’ second company,
provides in-home and in-room massage, plus backup massage therapists to
cover busy resort spas during Palm Springs’ tourist season.
 |
| At some spas,
therapists are paid commissions for selling skin-care products and
other accessories. |
From her vantage point, Yamada sees employee turnover and burnout as the
biggest personnel problem facing spas. On the April weekend we talked,
Yamada was supplying back-up massage therapists to five resort hotels
that did not have enough available massage therapists on staff to meet
the demand. “The typical therapist in our resort community starts work
when the season begins after summer, and by March can be too tired or
injured to work regularly,” says Yamada. “Because the heavy tourist
season continues through mid-May, there is a considerable shortfall of
therapists near the end of the season, and spas don’t want to take on
new hires with the season just about over.”
Yamada’s therapists are independent contractors when working for Desert
Massage Associates. They are paid a flat rate per massage on a scale
that recognizes the varying amount of effort required: $37 at a hotel
spa, $42 in a residence, and $47 in a hotel room. When working at the
Spa Therapy Center, the therapists are employees, and paid $29 for a
standard 60-minute massage and $34 for a 60-minute specialty massage.
Yamada sets the massages for a full hour rather than the 50 minutes
common in hotel spas, which, she opines, may be compressing time in
order to make the most of the tremendous demand for massages in the
spas. She also gives therapists at least 15 minutes between massages
instead of the 10 minutes favored by corporate-owned spas.
Massage therapists at All About Massage are all seasoned professionals
hired at the same pay scale, whereas a corporate-run spa may have four
pay schedules and hire therapists with varying amounts of education and
experience. Yamada says there are no entry-level positions at the Spa
Therapy Center because she is marketing her business “at a higher level
of therapy value.”
“A client will come here from an expensive resort hotel because he
believes he will get better therapy at a better price,” claims Yamada,
adding that many clients will be attracted to higher-quality therapy,
while others will look for the most luxurious spa environment.
Retail is part of the job at All About Massage. Yamada’s employees are
paid 15 percent commission on skin-care products, and 5 percent on the
other products in the center’s store. She expects therapists to be
thinking, “How else can I help this client that would benefit them at
home?”
As examples, Yamada suggests that most clients can use a book or video
on stress management, yoga or stretching.
On Yamada’s personnel wish list, in addition to less turnover, is more
therapists who want to select just one place of work and build a
following, rather than doing massage at several places. “Often,
therapists don’t have the business experience to put the whole thing
together in figuring out their net earnings from working between several
jobs versus staying put,” says Yamada. “We give priority to therapists
who work exclusively for us and they earn more here.”
|
What Works
And What Doesn't
Having a mutually beneficial business
relationship between spa owners and their therapists takes some
give-and-take, as well as communication, according to Peggy Wynne
Borgman of Preston Wynne Day Spa and Preston Wynne Success Systems.
Here is her advice on four key elements:
1On
building and retaining the clients of a spa.
“Most important is that massage therapists be able to effectively
sell themselves and their treatment, not only what they do, but also
all of the other treatments in the spa. The more reasons the client
has for coming to the spa, the more stable the client is.
Cross-selling in the spa anchors the clients to everyone so that,
for example, if a massage therapist leaves, her clients won’t peel
off to go with her, taking their business away from everyone in the
spa—massage therapists, estheticians, manicurists, retail, etc. It
is not ‘I am building my clientele, but I am building the spa’s
clientele,’ because a stable clientele for the spa means a stable
and steady clientele for the therapist.”
2On
schooling and continuing education.
“Ideally, schools will teach students what the world of spas is so
they can align themselves with it instead of the world massage
therapists sometimes choose to occupy. Some therapists simply choose
to limit themselves to a singular vision, to do certain modalities
and no others. Some schools emphasize the healer role while
suggesting that to recommend products, for example, would be a
compromise of integrity. Therapists need to be able to recommend
home care knowledgeably. Some massage therapists ‘want to be it,’
and it bothers them to think a product the client will use at home
will play a role in the treatment.”
3On
recommending products.
“Culturally, estheticians come out of school knowing they are going
to be recommending and selling home products. It’s the face.
Skin-care products for the body are now making more of an impact, in
part due to the antiaging emphasis health is taking on. From massage
therapists I will sometimes hear, ‘There is no way I could sell
something I don’t believe in.’ They are setting up restrictions. To
work in our spa successfully a person needs to use spa products
themselves and enjoy trying new ones. We need someone who wants to
learn. They will be backed up with plenty of product information.”
(Incidentally, a 2001 spa user study
conducted by Cox Consulting for ISPA found that 60 percent of day
spa users, 44 percent of resort/hotel spas users, and 50 percent of
destination spa user had purchased facial or skin care products from
the retail area of the spa.)
4On
compensation plans. “At our
spa, compensation for treatments is relatively lower than elsewhere,
but we pay a dramatically higher commission on retail. We also have
incentive pay based on team performance. Since massage therapists
are not only money driven, we find that the group reward can often
be as important as a system of individual pay incentives. We have 60
employees total, 40 treatment staff, about equally divided between
massage therapists and estheticians, 30 full-time and 10 part-time.”
—Brian Coughlan |
continued on next
page.............
|
