Hiring and keeping good staff has never been easy in the tanning industry. Turnover often runs high, and a reliable person who stays a while can feel like the exception rather than the norm. But the fundamentals still work in your favor: a salon is clean, warm, and social—you’re on your feet but not breaking your back, the clients are regulars in a good mood, and the team is small enough that a good employee actually gets noticed. The right people still want that.

What’s changed is the competition. Gig work handed your applicant total control—drive for a delivery app whenever you feel like it, log off whenever you don’t, answer to no one. Meanwhile, other types of retail chains still offer steady hours, a recognizable name, and sometimes real benefits. For some of the people who used to fill your schedule, those are real draws. That doesn’t mean you can’t win them over. It means you have to hire on purpose instead of just posting a sign—by knowing the advantages a salon has that neither gig work nor retail can touch, and building your role around them.

Click here to read the entire article in the latest issue of Smart Tan Magazine online.