Making culture the core of hiring with Ann Falzone

Daniel Blaser (00:07):

Hello, and welcome to On the Clock, presented by Workstream. If you care about hiring and retaining hourly employees, you're in the right place. I'm Daniel Blaser, and today it's my pleasure to speak with Ann Falzone, COO of Artemis Wax, which has 52 European Wax center locations across seven states in the Northeastern us. We discussed the unique hiring challenges recently faced by her industry, the most impactful changes to her hiring process, why culture is so important in attracting hourly employees and much more. Enjoy. Thanks so much for speaking with me today, Anne. To kick things off, could you kind of set the stage as far as the hiring challenges that you've faced over the last 12 to 18 months?

Ann Falzone (00:52):

So obviously there's a big difference between pre covid I and post covid I as far as staffing. I do believe that a big challenge is we employ a lot of working moms who decided to stay home post covid I, and decided that that was probably fit their family life and their financial budget a little bit better than going back to work. That was one problem. The second problem in regards to like estheticians is they need a license and a lot of the schools shut down during that time period. So I kind of feel like we're still in a little bit of a catch up mode when it comes to getting estheticians out of school.

Daniel Blaser (01:32):

Yeah, I can see how that presents a unique challenge. Approximately how long does that schooling take?

Ann Falzone (01:38):

It, it's generally anywhere from six months to a year. But let's face it, every industry is trying to catch up. So, you know, those estheticians aren't just going to work to, to go wax. So everybody's kind of in that catch up mode. I feel like.

Daniel Blaser (01:53):

Now you've already spoken a little bit about the challenges created by those schools closing and, and kind of trying to play catch up. I'd love to hear a little bit about how your efforts to find the employees that are out there. How have those efforts been falling short?

Ann Falzone (02:08):

Well, I think everybody communicates differently, and so I feel like this whole generation really likes texting. Nobody likes to take a phone call. That's, that's kind of one problem I think that, that we were having is some managers were actually calling people, and I believe that texting is probably a better method of communicating with this generation. So I think that was the biggest obstacle and I think the second obstacle, and people just don't realize we get so much like scam on our phones that we don't answer the phone when we don't recognize the number. So I think that part of it really helped out.

Daniel Blaser (02:49):

Yeah, absolutely. I'd say that I'm one of those who prefers texting as well. Now, I don't want to turn this into a work stream commercial or anything like that, but I do know that you have had some success communicating via text message with candidates. Can you speak to the most significant impact that that has had?

Ann Falzone (03:07):

I think the key thing, and I'll, I, I know I'm repeating this, but it's, it's really the response rate has made us be able to hire and respond quicker timeframe. I think because we have so many locations, each location kind of has their own hiring issues. It, you know, some areas we have absolutely zero of a hard time actually hiring waxers. It's really more the front desk that we have a hard time with other areas, it's, it's managers. So I, I do think the more important thing, especially the scale that we have, is that we're able to see all of our stores and see it very quickly by toggling back and forth between stores. So we're able to have conversations with people, I see you're struggling with this area. Do you need help? Do you need additional resources? And so it's helped in that like manage overall our, our entire portfolio.

Daniel Blaser (04:02):

That's awesome. I mean, obviously great to hear that things are getting a little bit better in a, a really difficult hiring environment. Shifting a little bit away from the nitty gritty of hiring, I would love to hear why you love your, your role. Why do you love what you do?

Ann Falzone (04:17):

First of all, I love the company that I work for. I've been with the brand over 11 years, and so I believe in our product and I think we have the best product out on the market. So that makes it easy to take pride in your work. I think. I love the people who work for us. We have a really good organization. And again, I think that's probably the second biggest reason that I take pride in what we do.

Daniel Blaser (04:44):

If you were to give advice to someone else in, in a similar situation as you where maybe they're in a leadership role, they have dozens of locations and they are struggling to hire hourly employees, what advice would you give them?

Ann Falzone (04:59):

First? I think it does also go back to the pride question where your POX center really has structure and you really know where the culture is. And so that starts with like when you're hiring. I think that really truly trickles down in the interview process. And so I guess my biggest advice is respond quickly. I think people, good people get hired very fast, so it's really important to get back to people. And I think you have to schedule time to hire, so you just can't let it, you just can't let it go. It has to be responsive and fast, especially in the world we live in.

Daniel Blaser (05:43):

Yeah, I love that suggestion of, of making it a priority, scheduling time to hire, because otherwise it just gets put on the back burner.

Ann Falzone (05:50):

And then the other thing is, I think in the today's world, you have to hire for your future, not hire for today because you'll be behind the eight ball no matter what way. You look at it, you, you have to plan for the future.

Daniel Blaser (06:05):

That's such great advice. Hire for the future, not for today. I feel like I wanna get a cross stitch of that and put it up in the, the work stream office.

Ann Falzone (06:13):

You, there's always room good room in your organization for great productive employees. So you should always be hiring that button should always be on.

Daniel Blaser (06:22):

Yeah, absolutely. Always be hiring. I love that. When it comes to attracting and retaining hourly employees, have you found that there are specific perks or benefits that you can offer that make a really big difference?

Ann Falzone (06:37):

I do think it's about culture. I'll go back to culture again. Yes, I do think that employees wanna be heard today. They, you have to be accommodating with, with someone's needs. I, I do believe it might be a generational thing, and I don't know if I kind, I love this generation. I'm kind of a person who really does, they grew up with parents who are on the phone twenty four seven, and although they like to be on their phone they want their time respected. I, I think that's probably one of the biggest things that I hear throughout our organization is when they want time off, they want time off. And that's why you have to be hiring at all times because you have to fill those needs. I think that's the biggest thing is this generation really wants to be heard.

Daniel Blaser (07:24):

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think you're spot on. And in regards to appealing to the, the latest generation of employees, have you found that there's anything else that's really important to them?

Ann Falzone (07:35):

Well, I also think you have to explain what, like we we're on com commission base also, we're not just an hourly. I think they really wanna be trained on how they can get to the next level and, and they wanna know what their future is on a regular basis.

Daniel Blaser (07:57):

Thank you for listening to On the Clock. For show notes and more info, visit workstream.us/podcast. I've included that link as well as some links to connect with Ann and learn what she's up to in the show notes. Until next time, we're clocking out.