By Ashley Laabs

When a customer comes into your salon, you want your salespeople to look and play the part of tanning experts. With perfect golden color and experience with almost every product and service in the store, your team should guide clients through the ideal interaction with your salon. It’s why so many salons offer their employees free tanning and discounts on lotion. But are these employee benefits hurting you more than you realize?

Employee freebies and discounts are standard fare in retail environments, where it’s important to look like you identify with the company’s brand. Even in restaurants, servers taste the menu so they can give recommendations to customers.

Unfortunately, employee theft and discount abuse are real issues that retailers deal with across the country. If left unchecked and unmanaged, it can have a real effect on your business’s revenue stream. But there are many ways to tackle loss prevention, so you can maintain these benefits with confidence.

The most important thing you can do to prevent discount abuse is to lay out a very clear policy in your employee manual. Clearly define the discounts employees receive, when the discounts apply, and if any friends or family qualify for these discounts. Be as specific as possible: Even “immediate family” can leave a grey area for some people.

It is equally important to define theft or discount abuse for the sake of accountability. If any use outside of your definition is abuse, say so! Put the consequences in perspective by deciding ahead of time how you will deal with these violations so there are no arguments or inconsistencies later.

Some businesses put a cap on product and service benefits. Perhaps you allow your staff to share their discount with someone, but it counts towards a preset dollar amount. If your employee gets 50% off lotions, but there’s a limit of $200 in lotion discounts per year, they could be more discriminate about their discount.

By training employees more than once, you can reinforce these policies with people who have been with your business for any length of time. Seniority, rank and relationship to the owners should never be an excuse for employee theft. Focus on the equality of all employees, the privilege of their benefits, and everyone’s responsibility in the success of the business.

Anonymous reporting can go a long way toward enforcing these policies and preventing theft in your business. No one likes to be a tattletale; some people will avoid it at all costs. So provide your employees a safe, anonymous way to expose theft to ensure that they do the right thing.

For companies that have discounts for associate use only, it’s more common to have a friends and family event or periodically provide a limited number of coupons that offer the employee discount to people of your staff’s choice. This gives them the power to share their discount while limiting the impact on the salon.

However, leading by example is another great tool for setting expectations in your business. If employees see management or owners smuggling a bunch of lotion or utilizing company resources for personal use, they are more apt to justify their own actions. Hold yourself to the same standards as your employees to maintain their respect, trust, and obedience.

With all of these elements in place, your salon can thrive by balancing benefits, expertise and sales in a way that benefits everyone.