12/14/25 9:45 PM

Why December Is the Worst Time to Discover Your Expectations Were Never Clear

6:16

December is when grooming businesses stop guessing.

The pace is faster.
The days are longer.
The margin for error disappears.

And suddenly, things that were tolerated all year, inconsistent work, unclear roles, uneven communication, become impossible to ignore. December doesn’t create these problems. It simply reveals whether expectations were ever clear to begin with.

The Holiday Rush Reveals More Than Skill

Last week, we talked about how the holiday rush reveals who’s the right fit — and who isn’t. But here’s the part most owners miss:

Fit isn’t just about skill or attitude.
It’s about whether expectations were ever defined. When a new team member walks into a grooming salon, most owners assume one thing:

They already know how to do the job.

That’s where the trouble starts.

There are many ways to groom a dog well, but every business has its own way of operating, and unless that way has been clearly defined, everyone is guessing.

Experience Isn’t the Same as Alignment

A résumé doesn’t equal alignment.

Someone may know how to:

groom
bathe
dry
finish

But they don’t automatically know:

your product flow
your drying standards
your client communication rules
your documentation process
your expectations around behavior, safety, and humane handling

So when owners say to me, “They should already know this,” what they usually mean is: I’ve never actually written this down.

Onboarding Isn’t About Teaching Grooming

Onboarding is not about teaching people how to do the physical act of the job they were hired for.

It’s about teaching your team how you want the business to operate, even when you’re not there. Skills will vary from place to place. Expectations should not.

If you don’t have:

a clear mission and vision
a structured employee handbook aligned with your goals
defined ways of doing things (not copy-and-paste policies from social media)

Then it doesn’t matter where someone trained. They still need onboarding, and employees need to be receptive to it. Every facility will have its way of doing things. If someone isn’t open to learning that or doesn’t align with it, that’s not a failure. It’s information.

What Onboarding Looks Like in Most Salons

In most small grooming businesses, onboarding looks like:

No shadowing
Here's a dog
You jump in when things get busy

In other words: trial by fire. And yet, we’d never accept that in other professional environments. Think about restaurants.

A seasoned server doesn’t walk in and immediately run a full section alone. They shadow. They follow a senior server's open-to-close. They learn the system. Not because they lack experience, but because every establishment operates differently.

Grooming should be no different.

What Gets Skipped and Why It Shows Up in December

When owners are busy or overwhelmed, the first thing skipped isn’t grooming technique. It’s clarity.

Owners haven’t always defined:

what matters most (beyond a pretty haircut)
how grooming, bathing, drying, and cleaning should be done consistently
how customer service should be handled every time

So 30–90 days later, the same phrases start appearing:

“That’s not my job.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“No one told me.”

Clients notice. Teams feel uncertain. Tension builds. December simply makes it impossible to ignore.

When Expectations Live Only in Your Head

Imagine if mind-reading were part of the job.

“Why are you washing the dog that way?”
“Don’t you know we use this shampoo first?”
“We always condition here.”
“Why did you tell the client we’d call? We text.”

Except no one ever said those things out loud.

That’s not a skills issue.
That’s a systems issue, and systems don’t appear by luck.

Why Owners Don’t Build Onboarding (And It’s Not Fear)

Most owners aren’t avoiding onboarding. They don’t fully understand it. Many of us didn’t either until we were forced to, through growth, teaching, or running structured education programs. Owners don’t have systems because the industry never taught them how to build systems. The focus has always been on the finished product, not the structure behind it. That didn’t start with today’s owners. They inherited it. December just exposes it.

Why Replacing Staff During the Holidays Is the Worst Outcome

No business wants to replace a team member during the holiday rush, and most holiday exits aren’t sudden. They’re the result of months of unspoken expectations colliding with pressure. Clear expectations don’t just prevent mistakes. They protect retention.

Where the Modern Grooming Program Fits

The Modern Grooming Program (MGP) isn’t about micromanaging staff or replacing leadership. It provides shared language and structure so expectations don’t live in one person’s head.

That means:

one business voice, not five versions
consistent grooming outcomes
aligned bathing and drying processes
safer handling and behavior awareness
clear workplace standards

When structure is in place, pressure doesn’t feel overwhelming, even in December.

“But I Don’t Have Time to Build Onboarding”

That’s honest, and it’s exactly why structure matters. Onboarding didn’t start yesterday. It started the day you opened. This isn’t on-the-job training, that’s a different conversation.

This is about knowing:

who your business is
how it operates
what it expects

Once that’s clear, everything else becomes easier to build.

If Grooming Were Treated Like a Professional Field

Onboarding would already include:

proper paperwork and policies
a real handbook aligned with business goals
structured shadowing
defined SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
safety and documentation standards
feedback and evaluation

No more guessing. Not more "I didn't know that". Not hoping people “just get it.”

The Quiet Consequence of Pretending Onboarding Is Optional

High turnover, inconsistent quality, outdated practices, frustrated teams, and an industry stuck reacting instead of leading. December isn’t the problem. It’s the mirror.

If this holiday season felt harder than it needed to be, that’s not failure. It’s information. The most professional thing a business can do is use that information to build clearer expectations before the next busy season arrives.