Adding therapists for peak season without breaking your schedule

The usual problem with hiring for peak season is not that you are short of hands. It is that adding hands makes things worse: the new therapist does not know which room is theirs, regulars get put with someone they have never met, and commission is a mess at month end.

First work out whether the bottleneck is people or rooms

Before hiring, look at the by-hour report. If your rooms are already full through the peak, another therapist adds no capacity at all — what you need is to spread demand, not to add staff. Skip this step and your extra hire spends the shift waiting for a room.

Give casual staff peak hours only

• Limit a casual therapist’s bookable hours to the few that are genuinely peak, not your whole trading day.
• Keep your regulars’ usual slots with your permanent staff; give walk-ins and new clients to the casuals.
• Assign the casual a fixed room so they are not competing with permanent staff for space.

Settle the commission rules before day one

Three things go in writing before the first shift: the commission rate, whether voucher-funded sessions count towards it, and whether there is a minimum. Negotiating any of these after the season ends is where arguments come from.

Review it once the season is over

Pull the therapist report for those weeks: how the casuals’ average sale compared with your permanent staff, and whether idle gaps clustered anywhere. That is what tells you how many people and how many hours to book next peak, instead of estimating on instinct again.