I received an anonymous email today from someone complaining that my website portrayed employers of massage therapists inappropriately.
I am not sure exactly what page they were referring to but here are a few of them
Here is the email…
a visit to your website As a potential employer looking for qualified massage therapists, your website came up on a search.I'm so disappointed to see such a negative attitude toward employers. I certainly don't overwork my therapists nor am i "just in it for the money."
While I am glad to know that there is at least one person out there who isn’t in it for the money or that is trying to take advantage of massage therapists, I am disappointed that the person wouldn’t engage in a dialogs and share how they are doing things differently.For the most part, massage therapists are being taken advantage of as an employee. They are usually asked to work long hours, with low pay and often are not even paid as an employee (with benefits and taxes paid). I believe a massage therapist that is hired as an employee should be able to get a salary of at least $30.00 per hour, get paid whether or not there is a client or not, be given incentives and bonuses when they create repeat business (because it really is them bringing the client back), full vacation pay and a retirement fund. Is that too much to ask for? The massage business basically depends on the skills and personality of the massage therapist and their ability to work with clients. Sure the owner may do all of the marketing and have to take the risks involved, but the way I see it the massage therapist is the one who really makes or breaks the business and should be paid accordingly.Granted most people who are really good don’t work for an employer but will create their own business which leaves massage therapists just out of school or those who are not really good left to work for employers. While I know this is a generalization and there are probably some good therapists who work for places, I think for the most part places that hire massage therapists for less than $30.00 per hour get what you pay for.
Share your experiences as an employee or employer…
Are you getting paid what you are worth?
Are you getting paid fairly?
As an employer what challenges are you faced with in paying a massage therapist what they are worth?
As an employer, what do you do for your massage therapists to provide fair employment?
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John C.,
I don’t know what you saw as hateful in my response to a question about massage employment. In fact I have nothing but gratitude and concern for my employees. Likewise my current employees have gratitude and concern for me. And I listen to and respond to their concerns on a daily basis. That’s what being in business is all about. In the past I’ve had employees who were simply not happy no matter what the business climate was. Too few clients and they would whine, too many clients and they would whine. Thankfully I’ve learned how to weed these people out.
By nature I am a happy person and I am happiest when people around me are happy too (probably why I am a massage therapist – I get to make people happy all day long). An employer makes a huge commitment when hiring someone and I’ve learned the hard way that there are some people who are way more trouble than they’re worth.
I still don’t see how you got my message so jumbled, I do not dismiss my former employees feedback, I dismissed my former employees because they were not good workers, something every business person must deal with.
I am in the absolutely right business, and thankfully I’ve had nothing but great employees for the last several years who are happy and willing to work hard and THAT is very good for business!
I cannot believe that “Betsy” is in the healing business with such a hateful and abrasive outlook on other human beings. Boy, working for you must be REALLY fun! It is easy to dismiss complaints that healing professionals have as “whining” but I don’t feel it is helpful to do so. Listening to your employees and their reasonable complaints, with an attitude of GRATITUDE and CONCERN will only make things better for your CLIENTS. Only a fool dismisses their FORMER employees for giving such valuable feedback. I would NEVER patronize a business such as yours who so clearly mistreats their employees. Shame on you. You are in the wrong business Betsy.
Hi, I found this while searching for another thing and would like for you to know that i do have my own business and have made it for more than two months. Betsy one thing that you may not be aware of in different states there are different qualifications i have an associates degree in massage therapy and there is alot of CEUS that massage therapist must take for keeping their licenses when you are licensed in less than a year. This all costs alot of money. May you find your way as i feel i have as well. Be happy and well always.
I own a massage & Day Spa in Nebraska. We are in a rural area & the fee for an hour massage is $50. Going rate around here unless big corporation. I agree with Betsy. I am a massage therapist also, so I DO KNOW what the massage therapist goes through. But basically, I massage to pay my massage therapist.
Most therapist I have employed complained that we were not busy enough, they couldn”t make a living, but they also could have hung up business cards or went to Networking event with me. Instead of sitting on down time, why not make a marketing plan and vision for themselves. It would of helped me & yes it would have helped them.
Also when we were busy, 4 massages in an 7 hr time-frame, if someone would call in for the day or walked in, they wanted take the massage, I would.
But, I am very blessed now, because I have a massage therapists who are mature in attitude and realizes that yes, you have to massage, change your sheets, wash sheets along with everyone else.
We as employers, pay the massage therapist, pay taxes, unemployment taxes and all the bills associated with keeping the doors open so massage therapist have a job. I have noticed, the ones who go into massage therapy for quick money have the most complaints. The massage therapist that go into the occupation for the right reasons understand what both sides endure.
I am the owner of a massage therapy business and a massage therapist who sees 20-35 clients per week. I work hard and my employees work hard. I think $30.00 an hour plus tips is a lot of money for a trade which requires less than a year of training.
I read the above comments and was reminded of the complaining I’ve heard from some of my FORMER employees. Many massage therapist whine when they have to be paid to “sit around” and whine when they have 7 or 8 clients back to back. Unfortunately, business owners have no control of when clients (the ones who enable your employer to PAY YOU) come in for their massage. I think these whiners should go into business for themselves. I don’t think they’d last two months when they see how much work it is and the cost of being a business owner! (Marketing, hiring, paying taxes, filling out government forms, interviewing employees, shceduling employees, building trust with clients, keeping clients, finding a location, paying rent, buying equipment and furniture, buying supplies, advertising, hiring and training support staff, etc….AND LISTENING TO UNGRATEFUL EMPLOYEES WHINE!
I was a licensed bodyworker working 4 years in 5 star spas in nyc. The pay wasn’t enough for me to live on my own, I made 30-45%. When I was working three jobs to make ends meet, I injured my elbow. Working for spas opened my eyes to what I didn’t want to do with my life. I could “fire” rude clients, make my own hours and pay. I didn’t go to school to be bossed around by someone who had no idea what my job really entailed. It’s strange that most spa managers have no bodywork experience, or are estheticians who only know about facials and products. I worked in places that charged $130 for an hour! I definitely wasn’t getting anything near that. How about being required to sit around, when you have 1 client scheduled for the end of your shift, that’s a joke. Or how about being booked back-toback 7.5 treatments with no lunch break. Try explaining to the client why it took you 10 minutes to start their treatment. I don’t think they want to know you had to dump the sheets, clean the room and shove half a sandwich down your face. Ahh spas how relaxing are they really???
I worked for a spa for around six months right out of school. They paid 20% which was 16.00 plus 8.00 and hour so we were to be happy with a 24.00 payment with the work. We got a membership to the resorts gym which was great but we had to do 6 massages in 6 hours five days a week and well mcdonald’s massage is really burnout massage. The CEO of the company just written about prior, well the only thing that i get frustrated with is the words part time job. Well, the part time part kills me for there is another ten or so hours a week maintaining the body and releasing the energy of the persons touched. Thirty dollars a hour for massage is not enough and employers often feel its okay to just work therapist to bunout. There is a high cost to spa enviroments and one day i hope to find out what they are but i also hope that i can give to my therapists a good deal as most of what the CEO has sponken about. MY only complaint is we may only work 30 hours a week but we have a good ten hour or more recovery time as well as we choose a carreer that could allow us only 30 hours or so a week. That is full time for a massage therapist. Traditional standards do not apply for us, for our job is not traditonal anyway. May the world see us as facilitators of healing as we are just that!
6 hours a day, 5 days a week sounds like too much massage to do for any length of time. I only do about 15 people a week. I have one friend who does 25 people a week and she has been struggling with shoulder injuries. Most people I know keep it under 20 people a week. I am sure there are some that can do more.
It sounds good on paper, but there is also alot that influences success – the working environment is one and do people feel fulfilled working for someone else.
What kind of turnover do you have with therapists? How long do most stay working for you?
Maybe you can help me out for a moment? $30.00 an hour is pretty good money even by independent contractor standards. As a business owner who hires massage practitioners I pay $40-$70 per hour with a 3 hour minimum guarantee per day. I don’t let any practitioner work more than 6 hours a day, 5 days a week to prevent burn out. Plus, it’s required that everyone must trade services and get a massage themselves every week.
Julie, if the independent bodyworker just thought about it for awhile they would realize that they have the potential to earn exactly what theyre worth. After you factor in the cost of client attraction, management and retention it’s about a 50/50 split and that’s what we pay our IC’s Half of all services performed. Now, ponder this for a moment we charge $80 an hour for a regular session. so, let’s do some basic math here
$80 per hour
$40 for the practitioner
6 hours per day
5 days per week
44 weeks (that’s 8 weeks off per year)
$52,800 PER YEAR
Factor in Tips
THAT’S EASILY OVER $60K-$70K PER YEAR FOR A PART TIME JOB
With a good book keeper the practitioner will wind up not even having to pay any taxes at all too.
In addition, there are great benefits for the independent contractor such as EVERYTHING IS A TAX WRITE OFF…Go to lunch, tax write off, Put Gas in the Car; tax write off, take an extended vacation; tax write off and the list just goes on and on and on…
Now consider if you will that major corporations not to mention small businessess are beginning to make their employees pay for their own insurance too. What makes you think that small spas and service businesses like ours can afford to pick up the tab for something the major corporations wont do?
Do you think someone who earns over $60K per year can afford a few hundred (tax deductable) dollars a month to pay for their own health insurance?
Here’s another point of interest…Being an independent contractor also allows the practitioner to take off as much time as they want (within reason)
It’s really important for IC’s to learn how to maximize the many benefits of self-employment
By the way any business owner who says that their not in business to make money is typically not being 100% truthful. Good business is about helping people and making a profit too. Everything else is called a charity…
more thoughts to follow soon…
warmest regards,
geo quinn
CEO, Workplace Oasis
geo@workplaceoasis.net
phone: 831-402-1195
p.s. I dont mean to rub anyone the wrong way that’s not my intention. I just think it’s about time for bodyworkers to either find a better place to work or work for themselves. Better yet, become so successful like me that they create work for other bodyworkers too and pay them what they’re worth (without going broke themselves)
p.p.s. Yes, Were always hiring and expanding through out California. Wanna a great company to work with give me a call today – that’s my direct number.