How to tell a new stylist they didn’t make it past the probationary period

An interesting question came up recently:

‘I hired a stylist, they were on probation, and it’s not working out. How do I take the sting out of not hiring them?’.

Here are my tips.

First off, I don’t think it’s ever something that everybody looks forward to. No owner or leader gets up in the morning and thinks ‘I can’t wait to fire somebody today.’ It’s not a pleasant task that most people like to do, but there are a few things you can do that can take your sting out of it and keep it professional.

1. Document everything!

Firstly, you need to make sure that things are being documented as you’re going along. If somebody isn’t meeting the required skills or the needs of the salon, it needs to be noted down and they need to sign it. This is for legal reasons and so they’re aware of these things being noted.

2. Straight talk

You need to take the emotion out of this situation and be straight talking. Make sure your discussion is based on facts. For example you can mention a decline in numbers or tardiness with getting to work. You can include them in the discussion and ask if it’s something they’ve noticed in themselves.

Make it about their skill set, don’t make it personal

Always make sure that when you’re talking about these points, that you’re making it about their behavior, or you’re making it about their skill set, not the person themselves. You can say “as noted in your file, we agreed that you needed to bring your skill level up to the expected level, and you have not managed to increase your skill level.”

3. Assessments for new hires

One thing to remember is what are you doing to assess them first before they come in? Because we always believe before somebody comes in that you should be assessing them on all of their skill sets.

Are they at a minimum skill set, particularly if they’ve just come out of school?
What level are they?
Where is your minimum skill set for that discipline?
What is your plan to help them to get to that minimum standard, or to exceed it?

So to recap, just always make sure to take the emotion out of it and base it on stats and fact.

Make the coaching about their skill and their behavior, not about them as a person.

If you want to see our detailed new hire assessment, join the 30 day free trial of the Salon Associates Accelerator and go to step 2 to get your copy of our complete skill assessment on