Improve your spa employee experience with these software tools

Happy employees are productive employees. Improve your spa employee experience with these software tools.

Spa employee experience should be a top consideration for all leaders right now. It’s a key element of business success. Leaders need to ensure that employees are well taken care of, that their needs are met, and that they have the tools to succeed.

But this isn’t always the case, partly because in this industry, managers are stretched thin and trying to juggle numerous tasks, and partly because there’s not always a clear process for how to accomplish this. Fortunately, there’s a range of software solutions out there designed specifically for this purpose. Software can help you manage health and wellness programs and reward & recognition programs, collect feedback, engage employees through challenges and gamification, and provide the tools your team needs to succeed.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at how software can help you with employee recognition in your hospitality business and at some of the best-known employee wellbeing SaaS (software as a service) platforms out there.

Health and wellness programs, support, and coaching

It matters that employees know that you care about and are engaged in their health and wellness. A report from SHRM found that employees who believe their employer cares about their health and wellbeing are: 

• 38% more engaged at work
• 17% more likely to still be working there after one year
• 28% more likely to recommend their workplace
• 18% more likely to go the extra mile for the organization

There are a lot of great software solutions out there that support employee wellness. Virgin Pulse, for example, offers holistic health and wellbeing solutions that encompass mental and physical health and wellness. And Limeade’s employee wellbeing programs are designed to create happy, healthy, and engaged workforces.

 League allows employers to address employee needs across the “healthcare continuum,” encompassing general, mental, and family health. League uses AI to create personalized programs, and predictive technology to identify health risks and connect people with preventive care and support. League also allows employees to find programs or resources, and get live-chat support.

Challenges and gamification

Gamification is the strategy of employing game-like rules and rewards to activities that aren’t actually games with the goal of engaging and motivating employees by making work fun. Gamification can provide an incentive to keep going instead of throwing in the towel when things get challenging.

Fitness apps use gamification to encourage users to reach their goals. When you reach your 10,000 steps and your Fitbit vibrates, you’ve won, and you get a feeling of accomplishment. Gamification applies to when employees reach their work goals and targets, and it can also apply to other areas of employee engagement. For example, to boost employee wellbeing.

Limeade, for example, offers wellness quests that encourage employees to include extra exercise into their day, healthy competitions and team vs. team challenges, and “power-ups,” which are quick tasks that become small wins (like in video gaming). This might be doing a few jumping jacks or standing up and walking around for a few minutes instead of fitting in a full workout.

Virgin Pulse is another example that uses “addictive technology and core principles of gamification as a solution to improving employee wellbeing.”

Reward & recognition programs

Lack of recognition ranks as one of the top reasons people leave jobs. Data from the U.S. Department of Labor reportedly shows that the main reason people leave their jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated.

Employee recognition software company, O.C. Tanner, conducted a survey and asked workers, “What is the most important thing that your manager or company currently does that would cause you to produce great work?” And the most popular response was “recognize me.” Thirty-seven percent of respondents said that more recognition would encourage them to produce better work. Unfortunately, a majority of employees don’t feel recognized at work.

O.C. Tanner’s Culture Cloud Recognition is the preferred solution for 31 of the Fortune 100 Best Places to Work For. “Culture Cloud Recognition makes it easy to send leader or peer-to-peer or recognition, trigger individual service milestones or company-wide celebrations, and deliver points redeemable in a world-class rewards store. HR leaders can monitor results in real time, manage budgets, and make informed decisions to improve usage and impact. 93% of Culture Cloud clients report measurable ROI in the first year.”

Collecting feedback

You can’t fix a problem if you don’t know about it. In most cases, an unhappy customer won’t complain, they just won’t go back. And employees are similar. Employers often don’t know they’re about to lose an unhappy employee until it’s too late. Stay connected with your teams and ask them how they are feeling. If you don’t ask, you won’t know.

Limeade’s TINYpulse is a cloud-based employee engagement and feedback software. It allows you to collect real-time feedback about how your employees are feeling, whether they are happy, frustrated or burnt out, for example. In other words to “take the pulse” of your organization. Employees can also provide anonymous feedback. TINYpulse can help employers understand why people are leaving and take steps towards better retention.

Culture Amp is another software that offers a survey platform and analytics for managers that include turnover prediction and goal tracking.

Provide the tools your team needs to succeed

Your spa business operations software should also support your employees by supporting their day-to-day tasks. It should be easy to use and intuitive, and should make doing their jobs easier – not harder. A software that isn’t user friendly can cause a host of issues and make employees nervous about using it.

Book4Time supports employees and their success in a variety of ways. Easy scheduling that avoids conflicts and a dashboard that allows users to view their appointments from anywhere at any time, for example.

A spa software should allow you to stay connected with your team, track KPIs, and facilitate performance management. The information gathered from Book4Time’s reporting dashboard can serve to create a flow of communication between leaders and team members.

Book4Time’s note taking function also allows employees to log customer information and easily access it before an appointment, allowing them to personalize and elevate every guest experience, which helps them build better relationships with guests and makes them more likely to succeed at every aspect of the job.

Your employees are more likely to succeed if they’re given the tools – and you’re more likely to succeed if your employees are successful.

The range of available software out there can help you create a warm, welcoming, and supportive environment for your team.

To learn more about how Book4Time can help you elevate your spa’s employee experience and reach your business goals or to book demo, visit book4time.com.