Hairdressing: the dawn of a new era
To meet customers’ new expectations, hairdressers are reinventing their profession. Read on for a closer look at the innovative initiatives L’Oréal has rolled out to support these increasingly connected entrepreneur-artists through the transformation.
Hairdressing 3.0
Digital technologies have heavily impacted consumers’ relationship with hairdressers. They now expect extremely high levels of personalisation and increased ease of access to services in salons and at home. While professional expertise remains the foundation of a customised hairdo, growing numbers of consumers are buying L’Oréal brands – recommended by their hairdresser or suggested by influencers on social networks – online.
The reach of digitalisation also extends to services. Better informed, increasingly demanding customers now make salon appointments online – particularly in the United States, Japan and Russia. At-home, beauty apps have also met with growing success in the United States, the United Kingdom and Dubai. Thanks to digital connections with their customers, professionals can remotely provide personalised assessments and recommend suitable haircare rituals.
This new generation of hairdressers is also reinventing the salon concept itself. As the number of independent hairdressers grows, they have begun to explore different workspace solutions. In the United States and Canada, they often rent chairs in salons or use hotel suites, while in Japan they have adopted coworking spaces.
Supporting professionals through training
The Professional Products Division sees education as an integral part of its DNA. It is fully committed to supporting hairdressers through the transformation of their profession.
For all brands together, the Division boasts 3,800 trainers, 90 academies and 250 training studios worldwide. About 30% of partner hairdressers participate in trainings offered in salons, via short courses or at seminars, on subjects as diverse as management, digital technologies, running a business and technical skills.
The Division’s brands also galvanise professionals at major events. Two thousand hairdressers from 66 countries gathered for a three-day training celebrating L’Oréal Professionnel’s 110th anniversary. Redken invited over 8,000 managing hairdressers with 25 different nationalities for its Symposium in Las Vegas, which focused on inspiration and learning methods. And Kérastase gathered 46 education managers from all over the globe for a seminar that lasted several days. The long-term goal is to reach 100% of the Division’s partners, including mobile hairdressers, to ensure they have access to all the services and information they need to grow their businesses.
This goal can only be reached by creating digital tools like the Access platform, which offers trainings on a wide variety of topics: digital technologies, management, Salon E-motionTM, etc. Access is already available in approximately 20 countries and is expanding, with the aim of doubling that figure.
L’Oréal has founded its own hairdressing school
The hairdressing industry currently lacks qualified and motivated candidates, with over 10,000 empty positions in the field in France. To boost the sector’s appeal among young people and improve employability, L’Oréal has opened its own hairdressing school in Paris and created the first ever bachelor’s degree in Hairdressing and Entrepreneurship. This programme provides a comprehensive training of excellence, combining technical courses with essential complementary skills in entrepreneurship and digital technologies. Aiming to reach as many people as possible, the training will welcome students from other hairdressing courses as well as those with more generalist backgrounds, professional hairdressers and people seeking to change professions. Those who need it will be invited to attend a month-long accelerated technique training to prepare for admission to the bachelor’s degree programme.
The aim is to train 10,000 hairdressers in 10 years. This new initiative is proof of L’Oréal’s commitment to helping to transform the hairdressing profession.
Top stylist: supporting the best hairdressering startups!
How do you select the most promising new hairdressers and help them open their own salons? L’Oréal developed a solution by creating Top Stylist. This innovative competition offers professionals eager to become entrepreneurs a chance to be a part of the first hairdressing business incubator at Station F, with the ultimate goal of opening their own salons. The first step in the Top Stylist adventure is selecting 10 winners during a technical and artistic challenge, followed by an assessment of their salon concept by a jury of business owners, entrepreneurs and experts. Next, the 10 winners receive a six-month training at the Top Stylist incubator at Station F, the largest startup campus in the world. During their time there, the winners learn from experts in diverse fields. They have the opportunity to think about hiring staff, growing their business and the customer experience as well the legal, marketing and digital aspects of owning a business. The programme goes all out to support the hairdressing talents of tomorrow.
