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Earnings, respect, fine atmosphere and the best in training can all be
yours if you join the massage staff of a world-class resort spa like the
Golden Door Spa at the Wyndham Peaks Resort in Telluride, Colorado, or
the Woodlands Spa at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Farmington,
Pennsylvania.
Katie Hurley-Laguna, a massage therapist and spa director at the
32,000-square-foot Woodlands Spa, espouses a teamwork philosophy of
management. “The managers have to serve the associates,” asserts
Hurley-Laguna, who supervises a staff of 125, 50 of whom are massage
therapists. “If not, we are not going to have a satisfied guest because
the therapists are going to be tired and unhappy.”
Great care is given to the hiring and training of massage therapists at
both of these luxury resort hotel spas. Continuing education for massage
therapists is ongoing at the Golden Door at The Peaks, notes Dan Mohr,
massage therapist and spa manager, who worked in a clinic setting doing
neuromuscular therapy before joining the spa in Telluride. Nationally
known trainers, independent consultants and spa product company staff
are brought into the spa to show new modalities. If Ayurveda massage is
to be added to the menu, for example, a specialist will come in to teach
the 45 massage therapists at the Golden Door.
Treatment menus at famous destination spas like the Woodlands and the
Golden Door offer more choices and a greater variety of therapies.
Guests tend to be well traveled and are looking for a unique spa
experience. Listed first on the massage therapy menu at the Woodlands
Spa is the 110-minute Woodland Hot Stone Shirodhara, described as “a
combination of hot stone massage, Ayurveda, and reiki.”
Clearly, treatments such as this require special on-site training.
Therapists at the Woodlands “are given the opportunity to learn all of
the treatments on the menu,” says Hurley-Laguna, but “if someone doesn’t
resonate with a particular treatment, they don’t have to do it.” For
her, training is a win-win situation.
More than just listening to her therapists—they participate in
deliberations over what kind of uniforms to order, for
example—Hurley-Laguna has everyone fill out a Personal Prosperity form
that draws them out on professional goals for the year, including “What
talents do you want to share?” and “What talents do you want to learn?”
The Woodlands therapists have access to all the spa facilities, and
Hurley-Laguna insists they “get work” themselves to prevent injury and
relieve stress.
In selecting therapists, Hurley-Laguna maintains she looks first and
foremost for “the ability to be present—a therapist who understands
about engagement, about touch, rapport.”
Mohr agrees. The Golden Door at The Peaks “is very particular” about
whom it hires. The establishment requires massage therapists to be
nationally certified, or have their application pending with the
National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork.
Hurley-Laguna and Mohr estimate the highest-earning therapists at their
resorts are making in the neighborhood of $50,000 per year. As is the
case with most spas today, therapists at the Woodland Spa and the Golden
Door receive a base hourly wage plus a flat amount for each treatment
they do. Gratuities paid to therapists by clients are recorded as
additional compensation.
The base rate at these and other corporate-owned spas ranges from the
federal minimum hourly wage for new employees up to $10 for senior
therapists. The flat rate paid per treatment is generally keyed to the
length of time the treatment takes, not how much the client is paying
for the service. Mohr says the flat rate for a 50-minute massage at The
Peaks ranges from $20 to $30. The rate is higher for treatments that
last 80 or 100 minutes. Full-time therapists at The Peaks, who work a
minimum 30 hours per week, are working five shifts a week and seeing 25
to 30 clients, according to Mohr. Perks include lift passes at this
Colorado ski resort. At the Woodlands Spa, where full time is a minimum
of 32 hours per week, Hurley-Laguna says the flat rate “across the menu”
ranges from $24 to $40 per treatment, with therapists averaging seven to
eight massages per day, four or five days per week. Full-time employees
at The Peaks and the Woodlands are eligible to participate in company
benefits after 90 days of employment. Both spas have therapists who have
been with them 10 years or more.
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Case
Example: How One Group of Employees Took Action
For more than a year now, massage
therapist Deborah Lowry of Spa Claremont in Oakland, California, and
her colleagues, have been trying to affiliate with a union to
improve their workplace conditions and benefits. (Please see MTJ,
Summer 2002, Page 25.) Lowry’s group aims to redress such grievances
by putting an end to what Lowry calls the employer’s attitude of “If
you don’t like it here, just leave, and we will replace you with
someone else.”
In the Claremont case, KSL Recreation Corp., the company that in
1979 took over the historic, much-loved hotel set on the
Berkeley/Oakland border, got off to a bad start by asking all spa
employees to reapply for their jobs. This led several massage
therapists to file and win an age discrimination lawsuit when the
new owner denied them reemployment. Spa employees noted that other
hotel employees, those represented by the Hotel Employees and
Restaurant Employees Union, were not subjected to these indignities.
Thus, the seed to organize was planted among normally peace-loving
massage therapists, estheticians and hairstylists.
In truth, communication and respect, however defined, emerges from
our interviews as more likely to be the difference in working
conditions between one spa and another today than is pay. The
therapists at the Spa Claremont do not enjoy the highest pay
schedule in the business, but it is competitive ($28 for a 50-minute
massage, $33 for a 50-minute specialty massage, plus tip). Their
charge that the corporation wants to keep them in a “parent-child
relationship,” and seems not to listen to them, is a circumstance
they could change by moving to a spa with more progressive employee
relations. But the Spa Claremont therapists, most of whom also do
some massage outside the Claremont, admit a main reason for staying
on now is to support the friends they have made through the hard
work of labor organizing.
Another observation made by Spa Claremont therapists that is not
strictly a pay issue but is a reality of spa work, is that the
luxurious atmosphere of the spa is more important than the therapies
provided by the hard-working staff. Efforts by large resort spas to
develop its “brand” and train everyone in the spa’s “signature”
treatments also may reinforce the idea of employee as “cog-in-wheel”
for some therapists.
Atmosphere does count with spa patrons—and for the therapists who
work on them. Consumer surveys commissioned by ISPA show that the
atmosphere of a spa competes neck-and-neck with treatments as most
important in consumer choice of spas—with atmosphere and
surroundings actually ahead of treatments by a few points for hotel
and destination spas. For day spas, treatments edged out the
environment by a few points. Even some of the therapists interviewed
at the Claremont for this article cited the quality environment of
the spa, including the people environment, as a reason they continue
to work there.
The Claremont employees mentioned the pressure to stay on a tight
schedule and specific guidelines on what to say to clients in the
spa as negatives. On the plus side, compared to private practice, “I
don’t have to do anything but massage,” was heard more than once in
recognition that the spa provides the workspace and the clients.
—Brian Coughlan
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A Five-Star
Workplace
Ever wonder what it would be like to
work in one of the most luxurious hotels in the world? For massage
therapist Ela Radu Escalande, it’s not a pipe dream—it’s her job.
Escalande, based in Chicago, works for the Four Seasons Hotel,
situated in the heart of Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile. The
facility recently received the highest overall rating for an urban
hotel spa in North America by Condé Nast Traveler magazine. It also
was honored with both the Mobil Travel Guide Five-Star Award and the
AAA Five Diamond Award in 2001.
For massage therapists, luxury hotels with such credentials are not
necessarily great places in which to work. But that is definitely
not the case for Escalande. She loves her job, and her workplace.
“For a therapist, I consider this the best place to work in
Chicago,” she says. “It’s a great environment, the employees are
well treated, and the customers are great, too.”
The Four Seasons Spa is relatively new; it just opened in August
2001. It is a full-service facility, encompassing 8,000 square feet,
and has five treatments rooms for massage. The spa works as a
regular health club (with annual local members), but also accepts
walk-in clients off the street. Hotel guests have privileges, but
must pay for each service rendered. Other services offered include
bodywork treatments, facials, manicure, pedicure, swimming pool,
whirlpool, sauna, steam room, spa lounge and day beds. Tea and fresh
fruit are offered free.
Currently, nine therapists work there; two are full-time (including
Escalande), and seven are part-time.
Escalande, 38, is an AMTA member, and has been practicing for 12
years. She specializes in deep-tissue work, such as sports massage,
shiatsu and myofascial release. She works six-hour shifts, five days
a week; shifts are either 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., or 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. On a
busy day, Escalande can work up to five one-hour massages, which she
does not consider a burdensome workload. “I can handle that because
I have good mechanics,” she says. “So far, I haven’t developed any
chronic injuries.”
This hotel charges $90 for a 55-minute Swedish massage, and $120 for
an 80-minute massage. Escalande and the other therapists are paid a
percentage of each massage given, plus tips.
She also gets an excellent benefits package as a full-time Four
Seasons employee.
Overall, this is a very good deal, Escalande says. “I much prefer to
work in a luxury hotel than a day spa, where I also have worked. For
some reason, hotels are better organized.
“I like being busy all the time,” she adds. “In addition, I don’t
have to worry about doing any marketing; the hotel sends me clients
automatically.”
As for disadvantages, Escalande says that although she is content,
someone who has had his or her own business, or is very independent,
might have a harder time working for a large hotel chain. “You do
have to follow certain protocols, stick to your weekly schedule,
etc.,” she says.
Besides being well paid and getting good benefits, Escalande enjoys
a perk that makes her the envy of most of her peers: As a full-time
Four Seasons employee, she can stay at any Four Seasons hotel in the
world for free!
—Mike Schwanz |
If it is beginning to appear
that a top-notch therapist has just about the same opportunity to do
well financially at one corporate-run spa as another, it is because spa
managers are in the habit of keeping track of what their competitors are
paying, and do not want to be caught out paying significantly more or
less than the going rate. The overriding objective of today’s
compensation plans, no matter how they are structured by spa employers,
is to limit the cost of sales to below 30 percent of gross revenue, says
Hurley-Laguna, who has extensive management experience. (She was a spa
director at major resorts in Florida and Michigan before joining the
Woodlands Spa.)
Not surprisingly, the 50 percent commission often paid independent
contractor therapists in a salon makes no sense to financial managers
who have the costs of debt on spa construction, laundry, receptionists,
spa attendants, employee benefits, utilities, advertising and
maintenance.
The whole era of independent contractors paid on commission may be
nearing an end, even in salons and day spas. Compensation consultant
Neil Ducoff used his session at ISPA’s 2001 annual conference to show
salon owners how to convert all employees, including massage therapists,
from commission pay to compensation he calls Team-Based Pay. The program
puts emphasis on individual and team bonus incentives that reward
employees who meet or exceed stated goals for service and retail volume.
Ducoff argues that this system, which includes a base hourly wage,
motivates employees to work as a team to build the salon’s business,
whereas commission pay rewards independent contractors who come in to
build their own following and are out the door “on a break” anytime they
don’t have a client. Ducoff offers coaching to owners who want to try
his system.
While restructuring compensation plans hits home for both massage
therapists and spa managers, the larger new trend of interest to both is
the merging of alternative therapies and spas. Although some pioneering
alternative medicine doctors have owned spas in the United States for
some time (see MTJ, Winter 1999, for a look at Deepak Chopra’s Center
for Well Being in Carlsbad, California), the “anti-aging” boom now has
leaders in the spa industry proclaiming that the merger is inevitable.
In fact, Hurley-Laguna wrote on just that topic for the October 2001
issue of Medical Spas magazine.
Hannelore Leavy, executive director of the New York-based Day Spa
Association, sees in the trend a reflection of European spas where
“everything is medically based.” Leavy also views the trend to full-time
employees in U.S. spas as consistent with European spas. With
independent contractor therapists, “You can’t control the consistency”
of the treatments, asserts Leavy, who advocates massage therapists
taking every bit of training available throughout their careers. She
expects product knowledge will become even more useful to therapists as
the new “anti-aging” physicians, dermatologists and plastic surgeons
merge their treatments into spas.
•••
Brian Coughlan, a massage therapist and
freelance writer, is based in Mendocino, California. He covers the spa
industry frequently, and contributes regularly to this publication. He
can be reached at: bjc@mcn.org.
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