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BLOG SPOT. By Clive Allwright
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ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE SUPERSTARS
As I sit in my house during another lockdown in NSW attempting write this this blog. I take a minute to reflect on this past month of June. For those of us located outside the State of Victoria. We were thankfully lucky enough to celebrate all things hair, in person at the AHIA awards at the glamourous Star Casino in Sydney.
By all accounts and seeing Linda’s social stories over the long weekend it was an incredibly huge task bringing the event to life for us all. I read on one of Linda’s posts “This has taken a small village to make this event happen”
It was an incredible night for us all, just to be back air kissing while dressed to the nines with our industry peers and future superstars. Especially after the past 18 months of this global turmoil has rocked every single one of us to the core. Thank you to all at Mocha for making it all happen.
What was also amazing was listening to the winner’s speeches when accepting their wellearned industry gongs. They all spoke with such passion about how much they love our great industry and what incredible opportunities have unfolded during their glittering careers. So why do we struggle so much to attract young people onto this wonderful world hairdressing? Or even stay long enough to even attempt the smallest level of success? Often being lured back into further education or another career all together.
It’s important for us business owners to recognise we need to future proof our businesses. We also understand that we can’t operate without staff and there is a massive global shortage at every skill level. We have all placed job ads on social media platforms, recruitment websites, shop windows, TAFE noticeboards spruiking our success stories. Promising eternal happiness in utopia with such generous renumeration packages, we are surprised that one of the Kardashian’s hasn’t applied yet. Our often-desperate cries contain messages of great promise, hope and success. That hopefully we can convince a potential school leaver, we are so flexible they can sometimes have the weekend off.
I think it’s time we took this show on the road (Once we can get out of lockdown of course and a much smaller version) My business partner at Piloroo.com Kelly explained to me years ago the reason why she got into hairdressing was because of a visit to her school by the young local hairdresser. Showcasing how cool it was to work in a salon, by demonstrating a quick “how to” on a couple of the students.
May I take this opportunity to make the shout out and propose the following mud map to assist with our industry’s future recruitment.
We now need more than ever a direct voice to our governments explaining our industry has a massive skills crisis. We need to be talking directly to the right people in the Department of Education.
We propose a series of roadshows to tour every high school in every state. Showcasing our young talent that we are all so proud of. Just like our AHIA young award winners with all the contestants and finalists, I was fortunate to meet many of them during the awards night and they are awesome!
We enlist multiple young “Rising Star” teams in each state. Consisting of YOUNG inspiring barbers, apprentices, salon owners, social media savvy hairstylists to do a combined group 1-hour demo in every high school as a new careers drive. Concluding with a 30-minute Q&A session with the team. Giving every school leaver access to watch the brilliant hairdressing documentary “The journey to my destination” which highlights all the amazing different career paths you can choose in hairdressing. We need successful young people to be around young people, people they can relate to and inspire to be like. I am offering my services right now to drive the bus and wait in the car park.
I witnessed first-hand the passion, the love, the nervous, and all the excitement the contestants experienced that night, thanks to Sally Brooks while I collected her International Hairdresser of the year award. We witnessed people cry and shake with pride and emotion that night. That’s what young adults need to witness and understand why we do what we love.
I would love to hear your thoughts and any other ideas on how you think we can solve this problem together? We will need a lot of villages to come together across this great country to make something like this happen.
Q: How do we eat an elephant? (metaphorically speaking of course)
A: “One bite at a time” However in this case it will have to be one school at a time.
