Beauty Business Strategies
The podcast where salon, spa, medspa, barbershop, and lash studio owners — just like you — learn quick tips to make more money, inspire your team, and create world-class client experiences.
Beauty Business Strategies
From Compliance to Crisis Management: The Essential Role of HR in Salons/Spas with Infiniti HR
Join us as we sit down with Eva DuPont from Infiniti HR and Heather Watkins, a waxing studio owner thriving with Human Resources support, to uncover the invaluable benefits of HR services for even the smallest of beauty businesses. Hear firsthand how HR expertise not only ensures compliance with essential laws but also acts as a vital safety net during challenging situations, like when a viral social media mishap strikes. Heather shares her journey with Infiniti HR, proving that tailored HR solutions can empower your employees and help your business grow.
Book an appointment with Eva: www.evadupont.com
Conversation highlights:
2:45 How human resources applies to beauty businesses
4:35 How to know when you need HR support
6:59 The 4 hidden labor costs
10:00 The difference between payroll and HR services
12:39 Offering benefits to your salon/spa employees
15:30 How HR services can work for a small beauty business
21:58 The benefits Heather experienced after utilizing HR services
Watch the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/6Sf4MiRkIpM
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The Beauty Business Strategies Podcast is designed to give salon, spa, medspa, barbershop, and lash studio owners, just like you, quick tips to make more money, inspire your team, and create world-class client experiences.
We're going to launch our next wave of podcasts. So I would say at the earliest. We're probably talking somewhere, probably August. I'm going to think at this point, all right, but we'll definitely keep you up to speed, all right? Okay, we're ready when you are. So you guys ready.
Speaker 2:Ready.
Speaker 1:All right, perfect, want me to do a countdown or anything, allie? Yeah, all right, I'll do a clap for Matthew. Welcome again to the Salon Business Strategies podcast. I'm sorry I said that wrong Beauty business. Yeah, I got my name wrong. Holy crap, beauty business. Would you clap that again? I know what I'm talking about. Don't worry about it. It's a podcast, peace. All right, here we go. All right, welcome everyone to the Beauty Business Strategies Podcast. Again, I'm Michael Yost here with you today and, as I always say, as usual, we always try to bring you great information and great guests, and once again, today is going to be no different. So today I am joined by Eva DuPont of Infinity HR and also joined by Heather Watkins. How are you guys?
Speaker 2:Doing great, doing great, doing great.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. Before we get into it, eva, why don't you start out and give everyone, I said Infinity HR. So give us a little bit about your company, just set the tone for the listener, and then, heather, I'll have you do the same as well. So, eva, why don't you start out?
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Thank you, michael. So my name's Eva Dupont with Infinity HR. I am a veteran in the industry. Infinity HR is a PEO platform. All that means is that we do payroll HR, workers comp benefits, all under one roof to help our salons and businesses grow and thrive. I've been doing this for about 17 years. Absolutely love talking about this topic, so I'm really, really excited to be here. And then also I'd like to introduce Heather Watkins. She is BCB Brands and she's an entrepreneur, but also a client of ours, who will be offering insight on what our services are like for her. And then Heather, if you'd like to introduce yourself as well.
Speaker 3:Thanks, eva. I am a marketing consultant and have worked with a lot of entrepreneurs for about 15 years, so I help, coach and counsel entrepreneurs on best business strategies. And I was doing some work for Infinity and then needed their HR services and payroll and support with a waxing studio that I own and it has been a game changer for me and it has been awesome for my business, freed up time, energy, resources and has really really brought our studio to a different level with some of the support that they offer. So I'm here to just offer some advice and strategies from both from a client side of Infinity.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I think anyone can be down with the idea that we want to save time and resources, that's for sure. So I think the best question that I have, at least you know, starting out, is to say I would imagine probably most people listening to podcasts are going well, hr, you know, do I? I'm not the size of business. When I think HR, I think larger scale, I think corporation, but I'm a small business. I'm, you know, I might be a business that's one to five people, I might have 10 employees or even 20 employees, but I'm a smaller size company. How does HR really even apply to me? And really, in some ways, what does HR really even mean when it comes to how we want to think about this? So why don't you, lexa, just start to kind of set the table for us? How does it fit? How does HR fit within the beauty industry and, again, for the most part, with the size of businesses that are typical of our industry?
Speaker 2:So a great question. The first thing I'll say is you're never too small for HR. With a lot of states and we are nationwide, we're in all 50 states and with human resources, there are, I want to say, at least five or six laws that apply to businesses with one employee. So it doesn't matter if you're one employee or you're a thousand employees, there are laws that apply to you. Do you know what laws they are? Do you know how to handle them and tackle them? And then, as far as the human resources, I like to describe human resources as you have this business, but you have employees. We also call it human capital management. So it's humans, it's not software, it's humans. We don't know if they've woken up on the right side of the bed that day, the wrong side of the bed that day, are they going to ask you weird questions? Are they going to come after you? So human resources is really giving you the tools and confidence and support and the protection to tackle these human aspects of employees every day first started talking.
Speaker 1:I love having a business owner on here as well in this area of of human resources and things. You know how did you come into going. You know, I see where this could be a benefit to my business that I really hadn't thought about before.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's an interesting question, because when we opened our studio we had about eight employees and I opened um in the waxing industry because I thought it was going to be a wonderful culture and young girls and get to guide and mentor them throughout life and their career, which is very relevant and true. But I did not expect to have HR mishaps quite as often as we did. So I think my first big mishap was someone who violated our social media contract or agreement and did it very innocently. I don't think she had any ill intent with it, but her video, which was breaching confidentiality of our studio and of our client, went viral on TikTok. So an innocent video turned into something that went very viral and I wasn't told about it until there was already maybe a hundred thousand views, told about it, until there was already maybe 100,000 views, and at that point the excitement was hitting of the esthetician's brand new fame.
Speaker 3:And when I said, hey, this has to come immediately down. You are violating our social media policy. She said I have freedom of speech. And at that point, when this happens to you on a Friday night and you have no one to call, and you're calling your franchise, and you're calling your franchise and you're calling your boyfriend's mom or my son's girlfriend's mom, who's in HR needing help, and she says you better call a lawyer. And I had to call a lawyer and this went on all weekend and I thought, okay, I need HR. And $2,000 later with a cease and desist letter, termination of an employee. I think at that point was the first time I realized these things are going to continue to happen. This was in month six.
Speaker 1:And now I'm in year four.
Speaker 3:Now I'm in year four, so the book is coming out. No, I'm just kidding Soon, so that was.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot of owners out there can relate to maybe not exactly in that, but I think a lot of owners out there can relate to the idea of I had one of those weekends. In other words, it sounds like, and you wake up and come Monday morning it's a way different way than you thought you're going to start your next week than what you had thought, friday at the end of a day. So let's get back to. You know, bring this back to you, eva. You know, when it comes to the services you offer, you talked about this idea. You know, bringing this back to you, eva.
Speaker 1:You know, when it comes to the services you offer, you talked about this idea. You know you talked about payroll services and the different services. So I'd love for you to give again hit that again like the different services. But when we dive into that, especially as it applies to payroll and in that area you know there's always a lot of extra I guess I'll call it, I'll say, hidden costs that can come along with that and that how that can impact bottom line. So maybe share some of the things that you have found that like what are ways that that HR type services can really help to strengthen bottom line, to, to create better practices for the company. You know, just improve costs in general.
Speaker 2:Sure. So when I talk to businesses, the first area that we help with is payroll. So payroll there's all kinds of different areas for hidden labor costs and I'll go through four, but we may want to talk a few minutes about each one. As far as payroll, hidden labor costs, there's so many things that could go wrong If you're doing payroll yourself. I don't know anyone that loves to do payroll themselves, so there are a lot of different ways to help simplify that. But the thing is it's not about payroll anymore. These other components I'm going to talk about. They go hand in hand. Components I'm going to talk about. They go hand in hand.
Speaker 2:Payroll, specifically, there's managing wages, there's salary, there's full-time, there's part-time, there's tracking hours, there's time theft, there's tax liabilities, there's state unemployment, there's PTO, there's breaks, there's classifying of employees. Am I doing it correctly? Are you paying out different commissions on products? Are you paying? You know how are you doing these different components? And if you don't have systems in place or you're not 100% sure how to do it, mistakes occur. I think the fact is, with every seven, every 10 payrolls that business owners are doing themselves, 33% of those payrolls have errors. And these errors, there's fines and penalties associated with it, so hidden labor costs. Within that payroll platform it can quickly yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you just gave us about 10 more topics for about 10 more podcasts with the things you ran through there. But again, that is, that is so. Like I said, that's obviously so, true is it's sometimes not? As I don't want to say, anyone thinks it's necessarily easy, but it's not always as straightforward as sometimes we we think it is. So, again, having the right company I know many companies work with a payroll service. Let me ask that I think that's the next question that hits my brain is I know plenty of companies I've worked with over the course of now, going on 20 years as a coach and things like that. Many companies use a payroll service. Is there a distinct difference between payroll service and the services that you offer, between?
Speaker 2:payroll service and the services that you offer Absolutely. So there's probably a thousand different payroll companies out there that just do payroll. Where we add a difference is that Infinity HR they only hire employees that have 10 years plus experience, so you are working with someone that's highly experienced. The other thing with Infinity so I've worked for one of the largest payroll companies. I was with that company for about 10 years and the one reason I left and came to Infinity is the service. So business owners they may not need you a lot, but when they do have issues or concerns or they need help with somebody, they want somebody on the other side to pick up the phone.
Speaker 2:At Infinity HR we've been around for about 17 years. We have about 60,000 worksite employees in our pool. So we're not the biggest of the big, but we're a nice mid-sized PEO payroll company and I'd say that number one differentiator with us is the quality of person that's going to help you with customizing the solution for the business and its service. So I take customer service very, very seriously. I'm sure Heather can attest to that. But it's not just me, it's me, it's the implementation team, it's the service behind it, whether it's benefits or risk. You're HR. We're covered with HR throughout the country and you have our cell phone numbers. So I'd say the big difference with us is if you want to just work with somebody, just hopefully get the support you need, Great. But if you really want to grow your business, have support, have someone to answer the phone, have someone who's experienced in the industry. Infinity is a great fit.
Speaker 1:So we had met at another industry conference and so we struck up a conversation as we were there. And you know, heather, I want to, you know I want to bring this question to you and I'm going to actually then talk toss it back to you, eva is is this? One thing that really struck me was, as we were talking, uh, was the idea and you meant you just mentioned it you mentioned benefits. I know many businesses within our industry just have a hard time going. Can I really offer benefits? How can I give benefits? Again, I'm not big enough to be able to do this, things of that nature. So, heather, why don't you you know, I know it's it was part of the side conversations we had here is, what are some of the things that, from a benefit standpoint, really started to kind of become easier for you? And what did you, what were you able to kind of, what do you offer and what were you able to kind of tap into?
Speaker 3:Well, what I loved is that the whole process when I joined with Infinity was very streamlined and very easy to understand. You have your payroll specialist and now here comes your benefit specialist. So we probably I probably had about three meetings with my the benefits team where they explained to me we are going to customize this for your studio. So that means that you can put parameters. You can. Here's what we offer, here's how much you can do.
Speaker 3:I got to really say, well, you know, I don't want to offer health insurance until they've been with me. You know, either for so long, or how much of it do I want to pay? Or with a 401k program. You know, typical girls in this industry that I'm in don't have a 401k. If they're very part-time, well, they can join ours. And we could set the timelines on all of that, which is really really nice. We can say, hey, after you're with us for six months, we're going to put you into our 401k program. You know, six months after that we'll begin to match. So we got to really customize every piece of the benefits program all the way around, which was really really nice, and it gives the girls, it makes them feel like you care about them.
Speaker 3:I think it improves your hiring, your opportunity to recruit better talent. It helps with retention. It helps the girls feel like they're working in an industry that really matters to them and it's not. I feel like many, many, many years ago is oh, she's a hairdresser. Now it's. It's changed Right. Hairdressers and people working in aesthetics and people working in salons. You know they're making just as much money as people working in corporate jobs and, I think, the whole mentality around you. You have the same opportunities here that you do in any other position because of companies who can help us do better for our employees. So it's definitely a game changer. It was definitely very streamlined and easy to understand. Like I said, I never owned my own business. I've worked for many different concepts, but when you are the business owner and you've got to start making these decisions, you don't know where to go. I never would have known where to go to get a 401k plan and everything is within this PEO, which has been amazing and really awesome.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So, eva, here's the kind of follow-up I want to give to that is you know, at Strategies we talk a lot about how we need to make a strong cash flow plan and build a healthy financial company and be strong in that area, no matter size and shape of our businesses. So talk to me about you know, when you were working with Heather, you work with another small business. We talk about benefits. Well, man, I would love to offer healthcare, I'd love to offer these opportunities, 401ks and things of that nature. How does this fit? You know, bring in the affordability part for me. How does this connect and fit for someone that is a smaller company that says, hey, listen, I have line items to watch on here and I've got to build health in my company and make sure that there were a strong financial company. But where is that? Where's that connect?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, everybody would not everybody but a lot of businesses are struggling with trying to attract and retain employees right? So they're like how am I going to do this? What's going to set me apart? What's going to differentiate me? Talk about how they're doing it, whether they've been in business for three months or 30 years. So we really have a conversation about what they're currently doing.
Speaker 2:As far as benefits benefits, nowadays, if you're truly looking for quality employees, they're looking for benefits. They're looking for something because they have to support themselves and they have to support their families. And you know what People get sick, right? People have mental health issues. People need some support. So they're looking for that employer that values those same things that they do for themselves and their families. So when I talk to a business owner, I give them a couple of different options and recommendations. At the end of the day, it's their choice, but not everyone can afford benefits, right? So what I do is I talk to them when they come under our umbrella our PEO umbrella and they join our pool of 60,000 worksite employees.
Speaker 2:We have Fortune 500 health benefits and voluntary benefits in our pool. We buy them as a large group when you come under our pool, whether you're one employee or you have 100 employees, you're getting our rates. As a large 60,000 worksite employee group, we're able to save our clients about 30% savings when it comes to health insurance premiums. Okay, because you're joining a large group. If you choose to go through a broker in the open market and say you have 10 employees, you're getting what's called age-banded rates. So if you have a 20-year-old and then you have 10 employees, you're getting what's called age-banded rates. So if you have a 20-year-old and then you have a 50-year-old, they're going to have probably the 50-year-old's going to have double or triple the amount in rate for that health premium versus that 20-year-old. When you join our pool, it doesn't matter if you're 20 or 50 or 40 or 30, it's a flat rate across the board and typically they're about 30% less in premiums than going to the open market. That's one way.
Speaker 2:Now the other thing is everyone's not quite ready for health benefits. So if that's the case, then we'll have the conversation and they're like oh, I just can't. I don't think I can afford 50% of the base premium for the health plan, because that's what business owners are responsible for 50% of the base plan premium with, say, unitedhealthcare or MagnaCare or Aetna. That's the responsibilities Now. They're not quite ready for that. Then what I would recommend is and I know it's kind of a long-winded answer, but it's important is that they may want to offer their voluntary benefits to start.
Speaker 2:So, with that being said, they can offer dental vision, life insurances, 401k plans, eap programs, discount programs and all of those. Oh, and there's a MEC platform which is Minimal Essential Health Coverage, and MEC covers 63 of the most essential services for health insurance. All of those voluntary benefits are included in our platform and they're 100% employee-paid. Nothing comes out of the employer's pocket. So when they put up the job ads and they want to post it to get applicants interested in working for them, these are wonderful benefits to put on that job posting that they're like holy smokes, my kid's going to need braces this year. Holy smokes, I need these benefits and it's a starting place and it's nothing out of pocket. So, either way, there's wonderful ways to help these employees with benefits.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that you know. A couple of things that are really hitting me is, you know, the first thing is I love that you brought up some areas that and I love that you made the point. It's like maybe you're not in the position where you can start like 100% with healthcare, but you gave a lot of other great ways to say you can break that down in the more affordable, more bite-sized pieces. But you also mentioned things like life insurance and different other ways that could be great benefits that people don't often think about and you're exactly right, that's a huge part of attracting and retaining a great team member in this environment that we are in right now. So I love that you brought those things up. And the other thing that really jumps out at me and you know, just observation for everyone listening is here's another great example, and that's what I love about these podcasts. Here's another great example and that's what I love about these podcasts. Another great example about when you connect with the right people, because we often think maybe, oh, I don't know that I need that, or I don't know if I can afford that, or I don't know if I should call that person because I'm that large of them. But just even this conversation tells us that no, if you have a business, you need to be working with the right people that can help your business. So I love this conversation.
Speaker 1:Last, kind of last question, with the time we have left. You know, heather, I'm going to bring it back to you on this one, and that is so as now. You mentioned the fact that you talked about in six months. In I had this first real like oh my gosh, eye opener, but now we're four years down the road, right, we're four years down the road. So talk to me about just overall, like four years now in business. You know what are some of the greatest, what are some of the greatest strengths that you've seen from being able to offer the opportunities that you can through these types of services.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you it starts with. One of the first things that we did when we signed on was I said I really need my employee handbook redone. We were given a basic handbook by our franchise and I thought it was good enough until all of these small things started happening over the years and then I would send out, hey, revision to the handbook. I felt like I was doing that at every meeting we had, because something would happen. I'd have to really figure out how to handle it and like, okay, let's add that to the handbook. So when infinity came on, they said, let us, let us see your handbook, let us see your non-compete, let us see your non-solicitation agreement. And they said this is basic, but let's talk about what's happened over the years and what we need to put into that handbook and that handbook. You know they they really coached me and said if it is not in the handbook, it's not enforceable. And so I'm a softie.
Speaker 3:I didn't go into business to write people up and put people at risk of losing their jobs. I have a really hard time being the enforcer. I am kind and generous and want everyone happy and I'm a people pleaser. It's hard to be the enforcer and the people pleaser at the same time. But when you have an employee handbook that has pages and pages of expectations and policies and things we are going to talk about in the room with clients and things we're not going to talk about and our social media policies and our attendance policy, and it's really well done to protect the business, I have something I think that has been one of the most beneficial aspects of this is I really have something that I can stand behind and that my girls really know is enforceable and I was able to plug in every single small thing that might've happened that could really disrupt business. When you have big HR issues between girls and you know, in the salon industry there's a lot of young girls, there's, you know, a lot of relationship things going on between people and I learned that that handbook has been a lifesaver for us because it really is thorough and my girls know we highlight certain areas. They know it can be enforceable.
Speaker 3:But when I have an issue now I have someone to call and when I tell you my rep will answer my phone in 30 minutes or my email and I say I'm stuck, I don't know what to say and she will say Heather, here's how you say it, and then you stop talking and you document it and you're going to be fine. You know, I think we all feel that we're a little bit at risk as a business owner in this day and age, and now I have someone that I can send an email to and say how do I handle this? I want to do this right. I want to be fair and firm I'm not sure I know the words to say, and so I have a backup, and the confidence that you gain from having this kind of support is fabulous. So it really has.
Speaker 3:It's given me peace of mind. It's given me a lot of time back with the automated systems and the payroll. We have never, in a year and a half of being with Infinity we've been with them a year and a half had one payroll mishap. And things change in our industry all the time. New girls are coming on and this one gets this commission, and this one's commission is changing. I've not had one payroll mishap, and that is wonderful, because the minute someone does not get paid, and that is wonderful because the minute someone does not get paid whether it's 25 cents or $25, your phone's ringing and they want their money.
Speaker 3:And so the efficiency, the peace of mind, the time saving on things that I don't want to find job boards and posting on Indeed and Monster all the time. They handle all of our job recruiting, they screen people, they bring them to me, so I don't have to go onto four different job sites and be posting my job posting. That was wonderful for me. We had a two-hour interview about what I want, expectations, what the criteria are for the positions. We wrote all of our job descriptions. That was wonderful. And then they pre-screen applicants and send them to us. That's a huge time saver. I mean there's so many things, but I would say the peace of mind, the saving the time, helping us retain and draw in better talent and be more competitive with things like the med spas who are able to offer those things when they're much bigger and been in business longer. So it's really been great. It's the peace of mind has been fabulous.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yeah, love it, love it. So, eva, as we wrap up today again, I know for myself I probably have more questions than we can absolutely have time to get to. But if someone wanted to reach out, get in touch with you and connect and maybe ask a few more questions, just get a little bit more information. What's the best way to connect with you?
Speaker 2:I'd say the best way to connect directly with me is at evadupontcom. That goes directly to my landing page. My email is edupontontatinfinityhrcom. But what's really nice about the evadupontcom is it will take you immediately into Calendly. You can book an appointment. I'll do a full compliance review with you. So yeah, evadupontcom. I would love to chat with anyone who has additional questions.
Speaker 1:Perfect, perfect. Well, I wanna thank both of you for being with us today. A lot of good information and again it just kind of shows us as a business owner what can we do to keep benefiting and growing our business. And again that's just working with people that help you advance your company in a strong and powerful way. So thank you both, appreciate your time today and for everyone out there listening. We will see you at the next podcast. Thanks again.
Speaker 3:Bye-bye, thank you.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you guys Appreciate it, thank you. Thank you so much, we appreciate it. Have a good.