Kay Deakin
Visage, Napier
Napier hairdresser Kay Deakin has been involved in apprenticeship training for over 40 years. Not surprisingly Kay’s salon Visage has a huge focus on training. Currently Visage has six apprentices, employs a full time training manager and their Salon Coordinator works with apprentices once a week.
“Training is the life blood of the industry. If you don’t train, who does? The bottom line is that the future of our industry is in younger people coming on,” says Kay.
“Providing training is crucial to having motivated staff. Because I offer training I don’t struggle to get skilled staff.”
“Training staff is extremely rewarding. It is great being able to watch people grow and develop skills that can set them up for life.”
“Successful training needs to be made exciting and I’m always looking at ways to do this. We have developed a training ‘passport’ which sits alongside HITO training and helps make the training more reflective of Visage’s way of doing things.”
Kay has a focus on leadership and management skills, and how these can be increased.
“One of my managers is now taking on a ‘coaching’ role which involves working with staff to help them in their career development – be it in leadership, management, training or creative elements.”
Kay has attended a HITO Employer Professional Development workshop and found it very useful. “It was great being able to ask questions, especially around legal issues.”
