Spa-Management Opportunities for Massage Therapists
If you are thinking about the future of your career, consider these spa statistics: $4.9 billion a year in wages; 282,000 employees; phenomenal growth from year to year - even from month to month. That’s the picture of the spa industry today that emerged at the 2002 International Spa Association conference held in Anaheim, California, in October. The million-dollar question of the conference: Where are we going to find the people to run it all? The biggest challenge for spa today is finding competent managers who understand the industry. Spas would love to be able to hire management from within, from the ranks, for these reasons:

• Staff who come from food-andbeverage or hotel-management backgrounds have no innate understanding of the physical, emotional or psychological demands of our profession, which is not just about hospitality but about care-giving.
• Managers who don’t intimately know the ins and outs of what goes on in a spa have a steep learning curve, and may never understand spa operations well enough to solve problems efficiently.
• No new employee can learn overnight the special ethos and aesthetic that makes a spa special - yet that specialness is a spa’s bread and butter. This presents a huge range of opportunity to the massage therapist working in a spa - if you are willing to grow and learn. Think about it: You already know massage and you know the spa. You have knowledge and experience that no MBA walking in the door can match.

It won't come to you
That’s not to say, though, that your boss is going to discover your hidden talents, pluck you from the therapy room and hand you a new career. You need to develop your strengths in a way that fits your organization’s needs. Career paths in spa are wide open, but that’s just what they are: paths. You have to be flexible, curious, logical, energetic, team-spirited and willing to grow to find your way along them. The therapist who always makes it to work at the last possible minute, won’t pitch in to solve a problem nor has interest in how things work outside his or her treatment room is probably not suited for management. The spa environment is one that aspires to a very high degree of perfection, and it’s the people who actively contribute to making things beautiful, serene and comfortable who will have the opportunity to grow in this profession - and who will succeed when they get that opportunity.

The first step in exploring other careers in spa, then, is to learn as much as you can. Listen without being defensive. Notice what goes on around you. Jump at every opportunity to broaden your skills: Deepen your experience in wraps, hydrotherapy, and in all the other types of treatments your employer offers. Be a guinea pig for new treatments (there’s nothing as enlightening as being the receiver) and make yourself knowledgeable about products and techniques.

Just as important as professional growth, though, is learning how the spa works. Hang around the reception desk unobtrusively, observing how the front of the house operates. When possible, help out in the back office so you can see what it takes to make things run smoothly. Who folds the towels, fills the bottles and cleans the rooms? When do those things get done? How does scheduling happen? How much does the equipment cost? What are the economics of your place of employment? How do managers interact with guests? Managers pray for employees who understand the nuts and bolts of the business. And they notice employees who do.

Many careers for many talents
Only now are university programs beginning to be developed for spa management. In the past, no two successful people in the spa industry followed exactly the same career path - there is no rulebook, no template, and no set sequence for rising through the ranks. Spa is too diverse, the growth too rapid and the need for good people too acute for that. This fluid, wideopen state of things means opportunity for everyone.

Employment opportunities today are varied enough to suit every skill-set, interest and personality type. So, you don’t like numbers and accounting? Then you probably don’t belong in operations management. But if you have a flair for creatively addressing clients’ wishes, you could make your way into service development. Or, if you have patience, superior skills and a gift for communication, you might make a good trainer or lead therapist. Here are some ideas about how your talents could lend themselves to a new career path in spa:

Lead Therapist
Duties: Under direction of a manager, takes care of product, supplies and other details as needed to ensure service quality. A good fit if: you are responsible and pay attention to detail. How to get there: Demonstrate to both peers and management that you are a resource and a leader, and that you are trustworthy.
• Focus not on what’s wrong, but on how to fix it; not on “Why can’t we?” but on “How can we?”
• Show initiative; don’t wait to be told what to do. Figure out how to make things better and present proposals to management.
• Acquire new techniques experientially through formal training, practicing with friends, receiving treatments from other professionals and getting services at other spas.
• Learn to work with other personalities in your department and be aware of the dynamics so that you can help therapists and management communicate.
• Cultivate a fair, generous, nondefensive attitude and let people see it in action. Work consciously to bring out the best in others.
• Make it your business to understand everything about the workings
of your area.

Menu and Service Developer
Duties: Helps design and create new services. A good fit if: you are creative and practical. How to get there: Establish your creative capability and your practical understanding of spa-treatment design and implementation, all in support of the mission of your
spa.
• Collect ideas from other therapists and guests, conversation and reading.
• Make suggestions to the manager about service sequences, techniques
and products. Be sure to give credit to others where it’s due.
• Cultivate an organized, focused thought pattern and good communication skills so that you can promote your ideas and those of others.
• Learn about the practicalities of service availability, costs and revenue margins (this doesn’t require business training - just information and good practical sense).
• Be able to evaluate how a particular service expresses the philosophy of the organization.
• Listen, listen, listen to the guests, and make yourself their conduit to management.

Trainer
Duties: Responsible for providing training on implementation of service
protocols. A good fit if: you possess patience and the ability to articulate and demonstrate.
How to get there:
• Cultivate a team orientation. You have to want every trainee to succeed.
• Develop a calm demeanor and systematic, organized approach.
• Develop your ability to explain techniques clearly in few words so that you can coach unobtrusively and effectively.
• Know the answers, and if, on a rare occasion, you’re stumped, know where to find the answer. Learn everything there is to know about the products, principles, underlying theories and goals of every treatment you train on.
• Develop excellent assessment skills for the protection of both guest and spa.
• Be able to assess to a very fine degree the competence of staff being trained.

Staff Manager
Duties: Recruits workers, does scheduling, supervises internal and external continuing education, and generally oversees any activity in the area being supervised. A good fit if: you are efficient, and have strong organizational skills and emotional intelligence. How to get there: Demonstrate that you can see the big picture and solve problems, have a thorough understanding of the goals of the organization and the reality of the employees, and can motivate employees to give clients the experience they are paying for.

• Understand the environment you’re working in, top to bottom, from your employer’s finances down to the smallest practical details.
• Be forthright about what you don’t know.
• Understand the challenges and advantages of being a therapist, an employee and a part of the organization.
• Understand how the organization as a whole works. Learn everything you can about the industry and your competitors.
• Cultivate the ability to see how systems can change to provide a better experience for the guest.
• Motivate employees to deliver the message your organization wants to send to guests. Inspire employees to support the spa’s mission.
• Never lose sight of the experiential nature of the business and the stressful nature of care giving. Assist therapists in any way you can to help them do their jobs.

Spa lessons
This is a great time to get into the spa field. Even if, right now, you’re a technician doing a few treatments a couple days a week, your potential in the industry is whatever you want it to be. But no matter which way you go, you must take control of your own destiny and choose your battles if you want to succeed. The career that grows organically out of your strengths and desires is one that will make you happy. Our industry is all about transformation, self-discovery and personal growth—and not just for our guests. Spa is a work environment in which self-realization is a very real possibility.