Working on Salary

[siobhan]

Has anyone ever been offered a job at a day spa or chiro office that was a salaried position?For example, $500 a week (plus tips) for 40 hours; work or not.Most places are hourly at best (even if you are an employee with benefits), or hourly + commission when you work.I have yet to hear of anyone offering such a simple compensation plan.

 

[Dan Crop Asker]

Nope,  any job that I have had before was based off hourly.  Salary could be an interesting twist.  I am sure their are pros and cons just like with anything else.

 

[Lith]

Working on Salary

The ProsYou always know you can pay your billsYou always know you will make at least X, plus tipsYou are less likely to try to find something else when it gets slow - minimizes job hoppingThe ConsMight feel taken advaneforum.xxxe of when it is extremely busy (even though you still get all your tips)You would unquestionably be an employee, meaning you have to stand somewhere 40 hours a week and possible fold towels.

 

[Glacierwolf]

Working on Salary

not for the average MT.it could be a great pay plan for a "lead" therapist if they have other managerial responsibilities that take them away from the treatment room where their money is traditionally made.....like if they were a trainer

 

[terry t]

i interviewed at a physical therapy office.  they didn't pay salary but they did pay hourly.  i can't remember what it was but it wasn't nearly enough.  i want to guess it was like $11 an hour.  i thought to myself you've got to be joking!  yeah, i didn't take the job.  each place offers different pay but i've never seen salary.  some pay is really confusing.  i've seen something like "we pay $5 an hour no matter what.  if you have a client, it's $13 (plus the $5 per hour) per client.  if it's a repeat client after 3 sessions with you, you'll get $15.75. (plus the $5 an hour) "  seemed crazy.  i am a fan of perceneforum.xxxe.  

 

[Bean on Board]

Working on Salary

The key to any comp plan is to keep it simple.One of the worst I have seen is $10/hr, + 15% commission (the menu has 12 different treatment prices), plus 15 of the 18% Service Charge. But, you are hourly, so you can be sent home half way through the day if it is slow!The problem with %, is that it is not simple -- you have to keep track of the actual price paid. Look at your typical Spa's menu - there are four or five price points for an hour service. Make massage part of a pamper package, and who takes the hit on the discount? Do you work less hard since you are getting paid less?Plus, you also create a weird situation in which the client signs up for Swedish, but keeps asking you to go deeper. Do you stop and tell them that is extra? Do you do as they ask, not charge them and feel you are missing out on your %? Do you do as they ask, and charge them and to get your %?I am all for flat hourly pricing and flat hourly pay. I would love to pay people a salary - $450/week plus tips, 75% of health insurance, paid vacation, etc. (the equivalent of $35K per year, plus tips as an IC) but every therapist we have discussed this with thinks they will be getting screwed if it is a busy week.

 

[Killua]

Working on Salary

One of the worst I have seen is $10/hr, + 15% commission (the menu has 12 different treatment prices), plus 15 of the 18% Service Charge. But, you are hourly, so you can be sent home half way through the day if it is slow!

The problem with %, is that it is not simple -- you have to keep track of the actual price paid. Look at your typical Spa's menu - there are four or five price points for an hour service. Make massage part of a pamper package, and who takes the hit on the discount? Do you work less hard since you are getting paid less?

Plus, you also create a weird situation in which the client signs up for Swedish, but keeps asking you to go deeper. Do you stop and tell them that is extra? Do you do as they ask, not charge them and feel you are missing out on your %? Do you do as they ask, and charge them and to get your %?

I am all for flat hourly pricing and flat hourly pay.

I would love to pay people a salary - $450/week plus tips, 75% of health insurance, paid vacation, etc. (the equivalent of $35K per year, plus tips as an IC) but every therapist we have discussed this with thinks they will be getting screwed if it is a busy week.

in many high end spas, and hourly wage plus commission on the service plus tip is normal. i've never heard of a spa taking a portion of the 18% fee, which is assumably the gratuity. how can a spa take part of a gratutity that reflects the ability and skill of the service provider? that's just stupid, and greedy, i say.

tracking a perceneforum.xxxe is not rocket science. at the resort spa, i had a menu that offered at least 10 different price points. keeping track was as simple as having a rate sheet that i wrote my perceneforum.xxxe for each service. after months and months of working with this scale, i memorized most of them.
and when the spa packaged services, THEY took the hit, not the therapist. we don't give less, just because management decided to offer a discount.

booking the cheapest service (generally swedish)and then saying, "you can go as deep as you want." when there is a rate change from swedish to deep is the biggest sarcastic joke amongst any MT who works in a large spa.the appropriate response is " i'd be happy to upgrade you to a deep tissue massage, which includes the pressure/techniques you're looking for. the price increase is $xx.xx. would you like to upgrade?"
if they decline, they get what they paid for.

flat hourly pricing and pay reflect a stance of someone who has never performed a massage.

some mt's say there is no difference in the effort needed to provide swedish vs. deep. i call bullcrap.not one person out there can convince me that it is the same to provide a deep on a female, 5'0" 100# soaking wet vs. a professional football player who is 6'4" 350# whose ankles are as big as my neck.

oh, please.

i wouldn't work for that salary scale either if i knew on a busy week i wouldn't be getting more pay for more hand-on work.

 

[Lith]

Working on Salary

i've never heard of a spa taking a portion of the 18% fee, which is assumably the gratuity. how can a spa take part of a gratutity that reflects the ability and skill of the service provider? that's just stupid, and greedy, i say.

It is listed as a SERVICE CHARGE. According to the Department of Labor, Service Charges or Gratutities IMPOSED by the employer are property of the employer to distribute as they see fit. Gratuities offered directly by the client are property of the service provider. Bear in mind, the spa pays approximately 3% of your tip to the credit card processor for the ease of allowing charged tips. I have seen many spas allow only cash tips, which makes it awkward, inconvenient and often leaves the therapist getting stiffed when people don't have the cash they need, are in a massage stupor and walk out without leaving it, etc.

when the spa packaged services, THEY took the hit, not the therapist. we don't give less, just because management decided to offer a discount.

hen you are not really working on a straight % basis - your % just went up if the spa discounts...

flat hourly pricing and pay reflect a stance of someone who has never performed a massage.

Save me the veiled put-downs. Practioners opinions are no more valid than anyone else simply by virtue of 500 or so hours of schooling.  By your own logic, you are not able to have an opinion about any of the policies or practices of spas you have worked for if you have never owned and run a spa yourself.

Perhaps you are assuming the worst and the flat fee is based on the lowest of the % equivalents as opposed to what it actually is - an average of the price points x %.

not one person out there can convince me that it is the same to provide a deep on a female, 5'0" 100# soaking wet vs. a professional football player who is 6'4" 350# whose ankles are as big as my neck.oh, please.

An hour of deep tissue is NOT an hour of deep tissue, as far as the client is concerned? How do you price clients in your private practice? Do you advocate being paid by the pound?

i wouldn't work for that salary scale eitherif i knew on a busy week i wouldn't be getting more pay for more hand-on work.

I presume on a slow week you would be willing to refund the difference between the salary offered and the work actually performed.

 

[talefairy]

Working on Salary

1. regarding the service charge, most clients are under the impression that this is the gratuity and would probably be horrified that these moneys are not the therapists. further, most clientele find it insulting when their 'gratutity' is pre-determined by the spa. 2. my perceneforum.xxxe never goes 'up' as you assert. the spa management decides to offer a package system. they decide how much they are willing deduct from their normal and customary charges to get clients to buy more. therefore, they should take the hit. to the average therapist, the hand-on work does not charge when the client books at package and neither should the pay. why short-change the very people who sweat their butts off for you and provide excellent service to your clientele? for a couple of dollars? that's very cheap my friend.3. veiled put-down? i've agreed with you in many other threads in business topics and most recently, the warning you posted about the mobile service in nyc (but i never know if i speaking to mr. r&r or mrs. r&r) so maybe you're unaware. this is the one and only time i truly think you're off the mark. my practitioner's opinions apparantly are no more valid than the therapists you actually know who think this is a bad idea.4. my pricing reflects an increasing scale from swedish to deep. this allows the client to choose the massage that best suits their body. in a flat pricing plan, the therapist is not acknowledged for the effort it takes to massage that football player. and the 100#'er, by virtue of the fact that the surface of the body is smaller than the 350#'er,  actually gets more massage on her small body in the time allotted makes it equivalent to the football player.  if the pay is the same for a swedish, i don't think my deep will be as good if i'm not acknowledged for it. again, why short-change the people who want to give ther effort to make your business successful and have the reputation as being a top-notch quality, consistant-service based business?5. salary, unless it is for a training/lead therapist who will have hands-off duties, is a bad idea. i wouldn't work for salary. i'm a get-what-you-pay-for kind of business person. i've worked for commisson/tips for more than a decade in this and other businesses. the universe/god/ or whatever name you've got for it/him/her has always provided the abundance i need, and moreso in many ways.

 

[guru]

Working on Salary

1. regarding the service charge, most clients are under the impression that this is the gratuity and would probably be horrified that these moneys are not the therapists. further, most clientele find it insulting when their 'gratutity' is pre-determined by the spa.

You are right. I did not say this was my idea, nor that I agreed with it. It was an illustration of a complicated compensation scheme.

2. my perceneforum.xxxe never goes 'up' as you assert.

Better check your math. If you get $40 of a treatment priced at $80, but still get $40 when the package price of the treatment is $75, your pay is a higher % of the revenue. Your % went up - because you are working for a fixed fee for a given service.

why short-change the very people who sweat their butts off for you and provide excellent service to your clientele? for a couple of dollars? that's very cheap my friend.

I don't advocate this either. I advocate a flat rate for all massages that is an AVERAGE of the work you are expected to perform. You focus on how cheap this is, but you overlook the generosity of overpaying therapists for Swedish massages on tiny ladies.

if the pay is the same for a swedish, i don't think my deep will be as good if i'm not acknowledged for it. .

But you are being OVERPAID for your Swedish, since the rate is higher than Swedish, but lower than DT.

The point is to keep things simple. An hour of work gets an hour of pay. Sometimes you work harder, sometimes you have it easier.

Our menu also does not distinguish modalities - so our massage is customized for the needs of the clients and their bodies.  Clients - and 35-40% of all spa clients have never been on massage table before, according to ISPA - don't always know what they need. Our therapists perform a consultation and customize the treatment to be a blend of their skills and techniques that the clients body is asking for.

 

[elaine1]

Can't say that I have.  When I wasn't renting -- I worked off of a perceneforum.xxxe.  If the salon ran a special -- they took the hit out of their perceneforum.xxxe.  If I ran the special -- I took the hit.  Pretty simple really.

I would love to pay people a salary - $450/week plus tips, 75% of health insurance, paid vacation, etc. (the equivalent of $35K per year, plus tips as an IC) but every therapist we have discussed this with thinks they will be getting screwed if it is a busy week.

I would agree with them.   IMO, $35K is on the low side for the kind of physical work that is involved in what we do.$450/week ($11.25 hour/40 hour work week) based on 52 weeks is $23,400/year and includes the paid vacation.  If I'm reading your correctly you are saying the other benefits are worth around $11,600.  And...the practitioner is expected to do "other" things when they aren't doing massage appts.Whereas if the therapist is making 50% and you the spa owner book them appointments/sales in the amount of $70K during the year -- they've made $35K plus tips, have worked only the hours they needed to do the appointments (which would be approx 14 "hour" sessions each week at $100/pop), and they can choose how to spend their money rather than have a spa owner/chiropractor/salon owner/whoever decide for them.  Plus...they haven't committed themselves to standing somewhere for 40 hours each and every week stuck folding towels or doing laundry or office work during slow periods.Btw, it would be nice to know which of the R&R's are involved in which threads/conversations.

 

[Neidy]

Working on Salary

Btw, it would be nice to know which of the R&R's are involved in which threads/conversations.

On a side note, I like not knowing.  R&R keeps me on my toes.  There are others who have vague names and no gender symbol that leave me guessing too.  R&Rs posts while opinionated and sometimes cocky do give me things to think about.

Okay back to topic....

What's the average for health insurance if you are an IC?

 

[BabeHart]

Working on Salary

And...the practitioner is expected to do "other" things when they aren't doing massage appts..

Actually, they are free to do whatever they want. They are at home or anywhere else, waiting for us to call them, so they can read, walk the dog, surf the net, or do anything else they please so long as it does not prevent them from getting to a client in an hour or so.

they've made $35K plus tips, have worked only the hours they needed to do the appointments (which would be approx 14 "hour" sessions each week at $100/pop), Plus...they haven't committed themselves to standing somewhere for 40 hours each and every week stuck folding towels or doing laundry or office work during slow periods..

Your math is correct, but I don't think the situation exists in reality. I have yet to see a spa where an "on-call" therapist can get 14 appointments in a five day stretch without blocking off the schedule for the spa or standing around the place. People who work "on-call" also face not getting called if they turn down an appointment or two