Erik Schmidt: What are the unique challenges that Sports Clips faces and how have you been able to overcome or manage those challenges to successfully staff your stores?
DeLisa Atkinson: I would say a big challenge within our industry is when people apply to us, unfortunately they're not just applying to us. There's a lot of competition within our industry. If you're in a shopping center, you might see a Sport Clips and then right around the corner you see a Great Clips as well. It’s very competitive, so you have to be quick to respond. Because we know whoever responds first, whoever sets up an interview first with an applicant, is going to have a higher probability of being able to be the first one to decide if they're the right fit for them and hire them or not. That's one thing that is absolutely important to us and that we really stress with our team leaders is we want our candidates contacted within 15 minutes of applying. That's ideal.
Woever sets up an interview first with an applicant is going to have a higher probability of being able to be the first one to decide if they're the right fit for them and hire them or not.
ES: So that’s a natural segue into where Paradox comes in. How have we helped you get to candidates faster?
DA: One interesting note is that we’re actually Paradox’s first franchise client. We've been with you guys for over seven years now. So we use Paradox across the process — candidates can talk to our AI assistant named Kenzie, who is there via chat widget on our career site or via text. Kenzie can respond to candidates immediately and help them get scheduled for interviews within a few minutes. Because like I talked about earlier, it's so important that we contact our candidates ASAP. They're not just applying eight to five, Monday through Friday. Questions and applications are coming in after hours. So it’s really impactful that no matter when candidates come in, they can interact with Kenzie and then when someone is back in the office, the interviews are scheduled on their calendars.
Erik Schmidt: What kind of candidates are you looking for, from a personality standpoint? Is there anything unique about that “idea” person you’re looking for compared to competitors?
DA: We really look for personality. That is huge. All of those soft skills are really what we focus on. We look for people who are going to be coachable and trainable. One thing that is maybe a bit unique is that we hire people straight out of school where some other brands might be looking for someone with one or two years of experience. We really do put a big emphasis on our training program — we truly believe that if you have the right personality and soft skills, we can train you even if you’ve never cut hair before.
ES: Like a lot of hourly, service-based organizations, if you’re not fully staffed it’s going to directly impact your customer experience. Why is being fully so vital for Sport Clips?
DA: For starters, we are not appointment-based. We do have online check-in and an app, but we of course do have lots of clients that just walk in. So that’s why it's so important that we are staffed — if a client comes in, it’s important that they don't have to sit and wait all day or it doesn't make them want to just leave and go somewhere. Whenever we're in situations where we're tight on staffing, it definitely puts a lot of stress on our team members within the stores. If there's six people sitting in the lobby and there's only three people cutting, that's super stressful knowing you have to focus on the client in your chair but there’s also all those people waiting.
Then I would say too, the trickle down effect is that it also affects our marketing. Because if we have a store that only has three stylists, then we have to scale back marketing because even if we increase traffic to that location, they’re not going to be able to handle that volume. Ultimately, this is directly affecting money for our stylists and the franchisees.
Erik Schmidt: Since you have a partial franchise model, how have you tried to centralize some of your recruiting efforts to make things easier for all your different locations?
DA: One big thing that I think is unique is that we actually have funds set up for recruitment, marketing, and tech. We started it in 2019 and our team leaders pay into these three funds every week, and that is what helps us centralize certain things. For example, things like Paradox and Indeed job postings, we're able to offer these proactive tools to our franchisees. We can make the decision that certain things are going to help our franchisees, and then the fund allows us to go out and pay for those things.
It's really nice because it allows us to innovate, and go, “Okay, let's try this. We'll see if it works.” We generally use our company stores and we own 81 locations to test different things to see if it works or if it doesn't work. Then we'll roll it out to the franchisees.
