Happy Therapists = Happy Clients: How to Retain the Best MTs

By Ann Brown, LMT
December 1, 2017

Happy Therapists = Happy Clients: How to Retain the Best MTs

By Ann Brown, LMT
December 1, 2017

When I was a spa director, hiring and retaining good personnel was always a focus. In a seasonal location, as many resort spas are, our business fluctuated and keeping our best massage therapists engaged during the off-season, required finesse. Our business success relied heavily on word-of-mouth and repeat clientele, so we maintained high expectations for our LMTs — we wanted to keep our most skilled practitioners.

Because massage therapy is a commission-based industry, maintaining consistent income can be challenging for therapists, especially in seasonal areas, but that is only one element of why retaining quality staff is complicated. Massage continues to gain mainstream popularity, but the financial gain for massage therapists has not risen accordingly.

The "Cost" of Membership Clubs

The insurance industry continues to fall short in compensating for massage services. Through competition stemming from the rise of massage membership clubs (such as Elements, Massage Envy, Massage Heights, and Hand & Stone), the average price of a Swedish Massage has gone down from the typical cost $115 to $135 at a 4-star resort to $69 for an hour massage, which can lower the therapists' commission.

A significant number of therapists want more work and need more income. According to the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), 42 percent of all massage therapists say they would like more hours of massage work than they currently receive, and 49 percent supplement their earnings with a secondary income stream, often through health care or teaching.

As the industry grows, available employment opportunities grow. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of massage therapists is projected to grow 24 percent from 2016 to 2026, significantly faster than the average for all occupations. However, education is a challenge for those wishing to get started in a massage career. As a result of the recession, financial aid was pulled from many schools, making it hard for massage students to pay for their tuition.

With these challenges, how do you keep your top massage therapists? First, recognize that, while money is important, it's not the only motivator, and trying to keep up with financial incentives may not be the best solution for your bottom line. Instead, look to boost intrinsic rewards.

Five Strategies to Keep Therapists Happy

Empower your staff through mission. Establish and foster a culture that is aligned with your business values. Why do you serve clientele's wellness and health needs through massage, and how well do you communicate your mission to your staff? Show your staff the importance of the role they play. Make sure your therapists see and understand the motivation for your wellness business.

Give your staff a voice, and engage them in creating the best business possible for the best service to your clientele. Hold regular staff meetings to discuss business and ask them for input, giving them a sense of ownership and responsibility for helping to build a stronger clientele base.

Build opportunities for advancement. Do you have top therapists who would welcome the chance to expand what they do? Do you have opportunities to give roles as educators? Or to give management experience?

Train staff on retail sales and provide incentives for top sales. Utilizing retail sales does provide a short-term monetary incentive, but your LMTs may find bigger benefit in learning sales skills and in the fun camaraderie developed through the good-natured competition.

Feed your LMTs' desire to learn. Education is the best way I found to foster staff in my 15+ years of resort spa management experience. The benefits pay off for the therapists, your clientele and your bottom line. For the therapists, continuing education fulfills basic career requirements, and it helps to add to their expertise, giving them additional ways to serve clients' wellness needs.

Investment & Profit

These ideas require minimal to no financial investment on your part, and what investment is involved is that — an investment. Improving your staff's retail product knowledge and sales skills will improve your retail revenue, for example. Investing in continuing education will result in more LMTs trained and ready in a variety of massage types, which creates opportunities for upselling to your clientele.

Talk to your vendors about support for education, from free training opportunities to discounts on CEUs. For example, Saltability offers CEUs for Himalayan Salt Stone Massage training, and often features special discounts when a spa secures training for multiple therapists.

In addition to giving your therapists educational advancement, your clientele (and therefore your business) also benefits. When all of your therapists receive training together, you can trust that the service they go on to provide will be consistent for each of your clients.

It's frequently said that people are the most important asset to a business — a phrase often repeated because it's true, particularly for the massage and spa business. We operate a hands-on business, so you need to do all you can to make sure your therapists are motivated and investing their own heart into the business, creating both retention and growth.