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Spa Benefits
Being a spa massage therapist can literally cut your responsibility in half. In general, spas handle a majority of administrative tasks associated with any profession, including:
- Advertising
- Booking
- Accounting
- Billing
- Collection
- Supplying linens and equipment
Additional benefits beyond administration include:
- Unlimited access to the spa’s facilities
- Discounts on services or products for you and your family
- Working in a health-minded environment
- Having a steady supply of new clientele
- Opportunities to attend lectures without being charged
- Medical, dental, disability and vacation benefits
- Other financial benefits of being a regular employee
Challenges
Despite the many benefits associated with being a spa employee, there are also many challenges massage therapists must contend with. While bodyworkers pride themselves on their unique healing approaches, spa managers seek team players capable of conforming to the business’s standards.
Six potentially challenging qualities desired by a spa employer include:
- The ability to focus on customer service well beyond what is typically required of an independent massage therapist. Since clients seeking bodywork at a spa wish to be catered to, providing attentive customer service is imperative to customer satisfaction.
- The maturity to remain flexible in the face of guests who reschedule and cancel. This is part and parcel of the spa experience, as most guests are on vacation and not necessarily conscious of this consideration. Allowing a last minute cancellation to upset you can throw off your focus and affect your next session. In these instances it is important to step back and appreciate the big picture of your employment at a spa.
- A willingness to support retail sales of the spa’s products. Being able to include salesmanship in your contact with clients will augment the spa’s profits beyond what is generated from its massage services.
- Presenting yourself in a polished, professional manner. This includes the way you dress and groom yourself for work, as well as how you communicate with guests. Each spa will have its own style and interpretation of professional presentation.
- The ability to work within a set time frame, including the performance of an intake interview. As the spa setting does not offer flexibility beyond the allotted amount of time per session, it is crucial for spa therapists to maintain temporal boundaries. This requires a bodyworker to be very direct when steering an intake interview. Important information about a client’s health is used to avoid contraindications and provide the most therapeutic session; however, a spa requires this be done in a shortened amount of time. This awareness ties into representing the spa you work for with high standards of customer service in mind, as a discussion that lasts too long will cut into a paying customer’s session.
- The stamina to perform massages back-to-back, seeing up to eight guests in a row. The volume supplied by a spa demands a massage professional be able to maintain physical strength and agility for a full shift. Several factors contribute to accomplishing this feat. In addition to being physically fit, bodyworkers can utilize proper body mechanics to prevent injury, maintain personal tools to prevent the absorption of a client’s negative energy and learn to center themselves quickly between clients.
Providing high quality bodywork while delivering quality customer service places a massage therapist at an advantage within a spa environment. The ability to work within the parameters of the spa industry may deliver incredible opportunities. Using your skills to deliver massage therapy within the continually evolving spa industry allows you to potentially reap the monetary rewards of a full massage schedule.
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