Mia Carmen

Mia Carmen is a small beauty & hair salon located within the David Lloyd Leisure Club in Ipswich. “My wife’s daughter Lauren launched the salon in August 2013, named it after her two daughters and built it up as a thriving business serving both club members and non-members,” explains Martin Slattery, Business Director of Mia Carmen.

With a potentially captive market of some 6,500 David Lloyd club members, Mia Carmen is in a unique position compared to Salons in the high street. Lauren and her staff worked very hard on building up long lasting relationships with this niche clientele.

When, with the birth of her third daughter, Lauren decided to step down as Salon Manager, Martin and his wife took over the day-to-day oversight of the Salon, appointed a new Salon Manager, relaunched the Salon under the Elemis brand and looked to extend the Salon’s range of treatments.

They did this by introducing new therapies such as micropigmentation. The current Salon team comprises three full-time and two part-time therapists alongside the Salon Receptionist.

Martin and his wife decided to engage Croner to provide professional support for both the Salon’s HR and health & safety needs given the challenges and liabilities that come with HR and health & safety. Mia Carmen’s employees are primarily female and young people, and with that demographic there are a particular set of HR issues that commonly arise.

With issues such as staff recruitment, retention and remuneration, performance management and maternity leave high on their agenda, Martin claims that the support of an organization such as Croner has been invaluable.

Martin stated that they chose Croner because of its presentation and professional reputation and because the HR and health & safety package on offer was comprehensive, tailored to their needs, and suited their budget. They found that Croner was especially sensitive to the needs of small businesses and committed to reducing the administrative burden, and stress, that comes with HR and health & safety today.

Mia Carmen have access to the full range of Croner services through Simplify Complete.

Mia Carmen found the Croner Helpline to be invaluable, and the personalized Croner suite of HR/health & safety documentation ranging from staff contracts and handbooks through to an H&S audit and risk analysis proved to be both comprehensive and of high quality.

“Croner has given my wife and I the assurance we needed, we are now confident that we are fully compliant, which enables us to focus much more on developing the Salon as a business than worrying about new legislation or regulation. Liberating us in this way has been invaluable in running a small business and whilst it cannot take away the ongoing challenges of making any small business sustainable and profitable, it does provide peace of mind.”