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How to Demonstrate Trust in Others (Elevate Your Leadership Part VI)

December 18, 2019

Trust is the glue to successful relationships. It’s important to recognize whether you are building or breaking trust with the people you work with, serve and lead. Then ask, how can I demonstrate trust and confidence in others?

How to Maximize Potential (Elevate Your Leadership Pt. III)

December 18, 2019

Do you tend to focus on people’s strengths or on their weaknesses? A leader’s job is to recognize potential and help them reach it. Are you doing that?

ISPA Conference Expo Awards honor exhibitors and sponsors

June 13, 2024

The second annual ISPA Conference Expo Awards were a celebration of sponsors and exhibitors whose presence in the Expo marked the pinnacle of resource partners’ creativity and dedication within the spa industry.

Jane Cho; Reviving Mental Vitality: Tools to Rejuvenate Mental Energy and Banish Burnout

September 14, 2023

In the face of high stress, uncertainty and demanding work and home lives, restoring mental vitality is crucial for success. “Just grinding it out” no longer works as a strategy to reach important goals. Managers will learn to identify risks for burnout in their teams and tools to prevent it from taking hold, and all participants will gain tools to restore their mental vitality.

Pulse: Is “burnout” directly proportional to the number of hours worked, or what other factors contribute?

Jane Cho: Burnout is distinct from “stress” or “fatigue.” Working long hours does not necessarily signal burnout, but it can be an important indicator. Some people can work 12 hours a day and get happily absorbed into a flow state, engaging in regenerative, energizing aspects of their job. Others can work six hours a day experiencing a continuous state of frustrated soul-sucking dread. We can look at the number of hours worked as one factor in assessing risk for burnout, but it is only one point in a larger system. If you notice that you are overworking, or that your teams are working a lot of overtime, leaders will first want to understand why and then look at other potential risk factors like overall morale, autonomy, skills match, recognition practices and others.

Katlyn Hatcher: Attracting Guests through Innovative Treatment Offerings

September 14, 2023

For spa leaders seeking ways to energize the guest experience and refresh service offerings to boost the bottom line, look no further: This panel discussion will explore innovative service offerings successfully adopted within a variety of spa types along with lessons learned and tips to consider.]

Pulse: Aside from the customer experience, does offering innovative treatments help spas to attract and motivate treatment providers?

Katlyn Hatcher: Adding wellness equipment has motivated our treatment providers and specialists as it allows them to further tailor the guest experience and be more prescriptive when recommending lifestyle and therapeutic recommendations. In addition to home products regimen recommendations, they are recommending alternative supplemental modalities to enhance the hands-on treatment provided. Our estheticians are educating guests on benefits of light therapy for skin and parlaying into the benefits of our whole-body red light bed; our fitness instructors can recommend at-home workouts and whole-body cryotherapy for recovery; our acupuncturist recommends wellness circuits as supplemental treatment. It creates a well-rounded wellness experience and educates guests on alternative therapies to enhance their day-to-day life. We incentivize our staff to recommend these enhancements as well. We also offer the red light therapy at no cost to our associates as a recovery tool and associate perk.

Leader of the Talent Talk: Smiley Poswolsky

September 14, 2023

PULSE: How does human connection play a role in attracting and retaining the industry’s best talent?

SMILEY POSWOLSKY: In the wake of the pandemic and the shift to hybrid work, the vast majority of employees— 70 percent—feel disconnected from their coworkers. That has led to the highest levels of employee disengagement ever recorded. In such a competitive labor market, companies have an incredible opportunity to make human connection a core part of how they attract and retain the spa industry’s top talent. Eighty-five percent of employees would be motivated to come into the office if they could socialize with co-workers or rebuild team bonds. Not to mention, 80 percent of Gen-Z and Millennial employees are looking to connect in-person with senior leadership and their managers. If we put human connection—and a “people first” strategy—as part of how we engage our talent from the second they apply to work with us, we can do a better job of attracting top talent and offer something that everyone is looking for right now.

Leading the Way Through Mentoring

March 16, 2021

SPA INDUSTRY LEADERS are often quick to point out all the ways in which their colleagues have supported their growth and played key roles in the success of their careers. Many can even cite a particular individual whose impact is greater than the rest. In some cases, these formative relationships happen by chance, but spa leaders seeking to foster growth in their teams, retain top employees and achieve their spas’ performance goals cannot simply place their trust in serendipity. Formal mentoring programs, though, can take luck out of the equation and help spas reach new heights.

Learning From Failure With Suneel Gupta

June 13, 2024

In 2014, the New York Times ran an image of Suneel Gupta within the article “Wearing Your Failures on Your Sleeve.”

Gupta commenced his keynote presentation on Day Two of the 2024 ISPA Conference by displaying the newspaper clipping, joking that he was literally the face of failure. “Everybody fails,” he said, “but long-term success comes from short-term embarrassment. So I decided to email this article to everyone I could.”

Leveling Up With Ryan Leak

June 13, 2024

“There’s levels to this thing,” Ryan Leak told Power Session attendees on the first day of the 2024 ISPA Conference. “You feel in shape until you go the gym. You think you have a nice house until you visit a rich friend. There are levels to leadership—we’ve discovered this through national research studies. You have to equip people with the right tools and right questions to be asking themselves to get to the next level.”

Lucas Irwin: Mindful Meditation

September 14, 2023

With more than 20 years in the health and well[1]ness industry, Lucas Irwin has committed his professional career to helping others live healthier and happier lives. Lucas will open the Power Session with a mindfulness meditation, guiding attendees to begin the session with a moment of total well-being, health and happiness.

Pulse: Spa leaders know the value of comprehensive wellness but we don’t always practice it for ourselves. What is a good first step?

Lucas Irwin: It is incredibly common within health and wellness industries for the providers to neglect their own care, in an effort to better serve their clients and customers. It is easy to overlook the obvious fault in that pattern; a diminished version of ourselves cannot provide optimal service and care. Whereas, the healthiest, happiest version of ourselves can deliver the highest iteration of service, care and connection.

We all have places in our lives that we can improve or adjust for the better. I always recommend that you start with one small thing, something that you can undoubtably stick to that will also make a noticeable difference. A few of the countless examples could be to meditate for two minutes every morning, to read before bed instead of scrolling social media, stop or reduce soda intake, or go for a 15-minute walk three days per week. The important thing here is we aren’t trying to change our entire life overnight; but we are beginning to build a foundation and some momentum that we can slowly and steadily build upon.