PHAB FAQs: Your Questions Answered

This is all very exciting, but we're sure you've got lots of questions to ask about PHAB. Here are just a few, to whet your appetite…

1. What benefits will salons gain by qualifying for a PHAB standard?

You are applying to a standard not a membership. You will need to apply each year and will need to qualify each year. The website page under: What's PHAB to you? - Salon Owners/Managers lists all the benefits of applying.

2. How could a Salon/Spa Manager use the PHAB Standard to raise performance levels in their productive staff? 

Many Salon/Spa Managers have reported a competitive spirit and increased revenue generation to result from when they have used the  FREE management tool to measure their stylists, beauty therapists and nail technician's performance on this website. When some of the staff achieve a GOLD PHAB Standard and others don't, it creates healthy competition. This becomes even more noticeable and helpful to the business when the manager announces that they will pay for any GOLD level PHAB Standard qualifiers. None of the staff want to be left out so they all start to beat the others in trying to achieve the Gold Standard. The PHAB Standard individual application Fee of £99.00 is almost incidental to the amount of home-care sales, repeat business and client recommendations increase their staff have to generate for them to qualify for the standard.

3. How will PHAB differ from other hair and beauty standards? 

We are a performance standard and you have to qualify in order to be granted a PHAB Standard.  As industry standards rise so will PHAB standards.  (In Phase 2)as soon as we have a target number of salons that qualify, we go to the consumer with an ad campaign asking them to choose a PHAB salon/ professional only, as they will have proven that they please their clients and they will talk to them more about their hair-care, skin-care and nail-care needs in addition to holidays, weekends and TV soaps. 

4. I have just completed my hairdressing qualifications at a college.  Can I sign up to get a PHAB award?

Congratulations!  However, you need to have worked in a salon for at least 2 years to qualify.  At PHAB we believe great customer care comes with experience. So please adopt great customer care skills by visiting our website to access the best chair-side customer care courses out there and in 2 years you will find it easy to qualify for a PHAB standard. 

5. Is PHAB legitimate? 

You only have to look at our industry backing page on this site to see who supports us.

6. How is PHAB going to manage quality control?

As Industry standards rise so will PHAB’s. A non-executive board of governors will be mentoring the standard and making sure the standards are fair and quality is maintained (these will be some of the most inspiring people in our trade). In addition to the prima facie checks of the facts submitted, each application will have at least one check made on a random basis of the information submitted. We cannot guarantee 100% accuracy but neither can any system. E.g. despite stringent police checks undesirables get jobs as child care workers.

So, while no system is ever 100% watertight, every care is taken to ensure that PHAB standard applications are authentic and truthful.

Our biggest gauge, of course, is the consumer who will have the ability to both praise and complain about PHAB salons/professionals and their service on the PHAB consumer website (in phase 2). 

7. Can you buy a PHAB standard?

No, unless you qualify you will not be able to apply.

A PHAB standard cannot be bought it must be earned!

8. Why should the industry back the PHAB standard?

This standard is independent and has been put together in consultation with the best in our hair, beauty and nail Industry and is designed by a respected member of our Hair and Beauty Industry (Nergish Wadia-Austin) in consultation with some of the most respected members of our industry- for the hair and Beauty industry. Why wait for a government led performance standard which will probably be put together by bureaucrats from outside the industry who will not fully appreciate what we require from a performance standard?  Isn’t it better to have a performance standard that is designed for us by us? 

9. Why would business owners want to reveal important information about their business?

Firstly, all the information stored is in keeping with the Data Protection Act and will not be revealed or shared with anyone that is not directly involved with the application process at PHAB or our fulfilment house.  Even the customers who provide the testimonials will only be contacted to confirm that testimonial only.  The most important thing to remember is why a business owner records performance results?  If they are doing it out of habit, to store, to criticise, to reveal annually, to fully utilise their computer programme, then the PHAB standard may not appeal to them.  But if you want to use those numbers to grow your business, improve performance, create healthy competition, instil pride, accentuate the importance of numbers and tracking, develop team members that care about their performance results, be able to identify and reward high performers, compare your team to an independent PHAB standard, attract better applicants at the time of recruitment, attract customers because they want to seek out the best salons/spas/professionals… ….the list of benefits is endless …then this is the standard for you.

If privacy of your performance results is the most important issue, even more important than excellence, development and growth of  your business and team, then the PHAB standard is not for you! 

10. Why do we need an industry standard?

Other professions have standards, why not hair and beauty?  A standard will encourage stylists and therapists to want to be better than average and become more profitable.  This provides sound, financial justification and a logical structure for increasing pay levels within the industry.   Frankly, our standard is long overdue!

11. Won’t attaining PHAB standards encourage my stylists to leave me?

Not if you’re rewarding them accordingly!  And don’t think for one minute that PHAB will just drain all your profits through your payroll.  A PHAB standard means your stylist is performing at a higher level, remember!   The equation will always balance out in your favour.

12. Is PHAB only for the UK market?

For the time being it is but we are already putting it together for the international market. If you have a group of salons interested (minimum of 30) please contact us and we will be happy to consider bringing it your country.

Any questions?

If you have any other questions about PHAB we will, of course, be delighted to answer them for you. Simply email us or use our contact form.