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Employees are by nature in any trade are working for primarily for one reason, wages. Their wages allow them to meet personal household budgets such as rent, utilities, food, health care, entertainment and savings. Most pet groomers love what they do. However, "groomer burnout" from various stress factors common to groomer everywhere are like viruses that destroy grooming careers. From our point of view as consultants it is no surprise because in an industry without mandatory certification or vocational licensing you have thousands of members who have never had even one day of professional career and/or business management education. A lack of knowledge fuels the fires of groomer misconceptions and makes the work of managing a successful grooming career like the handling challenges of grooming a behavioral pet.

The concept of commission wages for employed groomers was first introduced to the grooming industry by business owners and NOT employed groomers. This is startling news to most employed groomers today who have adopted "the cause of commission wages" almost as if there was a movement to form a groomer employee union if commission wages were somehow abolished. Turn back the clock of the grooming industry and you will indeed find that grooming business owners developed commission wages. Why? When the demand for services in the businesses grew to a point where another groomer was required to meet the demand they didn't want to commit to a guaranteed salary offer. You probably know grooming business owners that still operate from this level of uncertainty today. Their FEAR (i.e. stress) is that if they commit to a $2,500 monthly salary for 40 hour a week full-time groomer and the demand for services slows enough, they could be caught short from immediate revenue covering guaranteed salary wages. For this reason most grooming business owners preferred commission based wages, and today many continue to support this form of compensation for the same reason.

There is always a risk for any business owner paying by salary, but professional management accepts that risk and uses marketing and client relations to create an ever growing demand for services. The benefit of not paying by commissions is that both the business owner and employees can manage their financial budgets with more certainty. However, most grooming business owners don't formalize an annual business budget and so the industry state of affairs gets even more complicated and prone to misunderstandings. Today, tens of thousands of grooming business owners never get even one hour of business training in their field. Not one hour.

In such an arena most grooming business owners of times past and even today choose to pay by commission and that puts most of stress of uncertain business and personal household budgets onto employed groomers. Every day employed groomers working on commission face the reality that tomorrow they may have 5 grooming assignments and only 2 the day after. Just how does the commissioned employee easily maintain a household budget under such circumstances? They don't without feeling that they have to control they employment situation, and now we see why some owners feel that commissioned groomers desire to overly control their clientele and grooming appointments. Commissioned groomers that desire a healthy full-time paycheck have to find a stable, year round business with plenty of grooming demand and then make certain that "their" appointment book is filled to serve them. We see this has working in the unknown every day and creating a tremendous amount of groomer stress not related to the actual grooming of dogs or cats which has its own stress factors. So keep in mind that the origin of commission wages began with grooming business owners that didn't want to accept the tasks of professionally managing formal marketing and advertising plans that would back their financial commitments to year round salaries paid to groomers. Today the majority of employed groomers continue to be paid by commission, but estimates run as high as 30% for the share of the groomer pool now paid by salary.

We have provided workshops to hundreds of employed groomers and they categorically state that they only work on commission because they make more income with commission wages. We always maintain an open mind and ask them to show me the numbers that illustrate this point. Unfortunately we rarely get proof either way. Most groomer employees and owners don't know how to work budgets that prove either the pro or con of commissions and salaries. It's all conceptions, or misconceptions. Numbers often provide proof of business management strategies that cannot be argued with and we like working the numbers as consultants. We continue to learn by taking a concept and working its numbers. So it's not our point of view of commission versus salaries wages we are trying to force on business owners or employees, we're just saying, "What do the numbers say?" by studying payroll records of various grooming businesses.

We've studied numbers for decades and the numbers are telling us a story not known to most members of the grooming industry. Most employed groomers are earning lower incomes today with commission wages versus salaries. It will take many more years before the industry awakens to this revelation. Indeed, we are so clear with years of research and audited documentation we know that employed groomers desire commissions because they have the misconception that commission based wages guarantee them higher wages, but more to the point, the underlying ulterior motive known or not is that they feel like they are in more control of their destiny when paid by commission.

Being paid by commission has the color of self-employment but being paid by commission is not legally self-employment. Consider too that 70% of employed groomers desire to one day own a grooming business. Perhaps being paid by commission seems like a step toward their self-employment goal. Then again, perhaps groomer employees simply choose to mistrust their employer and figure that salaries are preferred by employers because it offers less compensation than commission wages. Please realize that there is no room for mistrust if both the employer and employee can examine a salary offer and compare it to a commission wage for the same work performance and the numbers will speak honestly which offer is best. However, we have rarely met anyone in the industry who can work these simple, simple formulas. Instead the industry is awash in mistrust between employer and full-charge groomer employees on compensation issues due to a lack of education.

Personally, we have perceived at our workshops that employed groomers prefer commissions because they feel more in CONTROL of their employment situation. Remember in most industries other than grooming it's always the requirement of employment law that business owners maintain control of employment arrangements. There are many justifications why employed groomers would want control, and at this point we just want to make clear that employees controlling employment situations are stressed beyond the normal stress of simply performing the duties they were hired to do, and no wonder then that we here so many groomers complain of groomer burnout from emotional stress. Our goal through education is to eliminate groomer burnout and create more professional business owners.

The first step to an open discussion of commission and salaries for employed groomers is to prove that it is possible for an employee paid by commission to be paid by salary and earn an identical gross wage.

We have guided hundreds of commission businesses to offer great salaries to their full-charge groomers. Most of the commission groomers were resistant to the idea at first, but the majority discovered a better working lifestyle. Most were nothing less than shocked to learn that it is possible to earn identical or greater wages with salaries. The chart below explains the basic formulas, but know that when we conduct the process there are hours of additional training to conduct the process to the benefit of all involved. The process involves looking at payroll records for at least 6 months previous to the switchover providing precise backup documentation that the salary offer is identical to what they have previously earned by commission.

Keep in mind that as you talk about this subject you will find strong opinions, and rarely will anyone be able to show you the numbers proving their valid point of view. PetGroomer.com, and our work with the leading business book From Problems to Profits, and our materials at www.groomingbusinessinabox.com are living proof that we avoid opinion and let the numbers tell their story, and the numbers are never to be used to solely favor the employer or the employee.