Background
The Elements hair and beauty business already had an award winning culture but, with both the high street and the hairdressing sector facing economic difficulties as consumer confidence wanes, the team was beginning to feel the impact and there were signs of ‘blame’ creeping into review conversations, affecting productivity.

In an industry where the ‘feelgood factor’ is so important and where personal connection and consultation is perceived as 60% of the value of services provided, any shift in energy has an impact on results and profits. The first signs of this were in rebooking success and the attraction of new clients through social media, with the resulting prediction of a loss of £100,000 in retained revenue and the subsequent need to attract 25 new clients a week.

"Culture has transformed from one of 'staff' to 'high performing team'"

Approach
To combat this the focus was on upgrading consultations, social media strategy and presence, and sales skills through a solution focused programme based on behavioural coaching and lead and lag strengths. According to the team profile, lead strengths were generally creativity and empathy (Fire and Water under the elacode profile) while organisation and focus were lag strengths (Earth and Air). Coaching was put in place to fast track the future talent team while a mentoring approach was designed to instill belief in the senior team of its ability to change and embrace social media marketing. An external coach was brought in to enable sales upskilling.