BY NELSON LANE

“ Our team members are the most amazing nurturers — in return , we need to nurture them .”

This short quote from Town Hall moderator and former ISPA Chair Jean Kolb served to sum up an insightful and enriching Town Hall session that featured workforce expert Smiley Poswolsky , Trilogy Spa Holdings ’ Andrea Zemel and Radhika Papandreaou of Korn Ferry . Each panelist brought relevant insights covering recruitment and advancement , stressing an employee-first mindset to spa leaders in attendance . The discussion commenced around how spa leaders can confidently balance increasingly demand-driven revenue opportunities while preventing burnout among their team members .

“ People have been talking about how unsustainable work is for a long time , and it took a pandemic for us to start saying ,‘ Yes , things are pretty unsustainable ,‘” noted

Smiley .“ Seventy percent of employees are burnt out and stressed out at their jobs . So I think change starts within our teams — how we treat people and promote rest , renewal and not just boundaries , but actual guardrails [ that allow people to ] leave work at work , take risks and promote wellness .”

On re-shaping our outlook from ‘ work-life balance ’ to ‘ life-work balance ,’ Smiley went on to explain that “ Life comes first . So how we talk about that and build a culture of that on our teams reflects how we then tell the story of what we ’ re doing , as a spa and as an organization , which then leads into the recruitment and marketing effort . And I think it starts with promoting flexibility .”

Smiley ’ s theme of flexibility was quickly echoed by Andrea Zemel : “ I always like saying ,‘ If you keep doing what you keep doing , you ’ re always going to get what you

38 PULSE ⁿ JULY 2022