The Birdcage Hair Salon was established in 2013 based within Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire. Taz, the salon director, transformed what once was an old, derelict building, into a trendy and innovative salon. Enabling them to expand their team of six into a team of eleven.

They took on their first apprentice six years ago, and haven’t gone back since, now working with a total of six apprentices.

“Apprentices are important to the salon” said Taz “having a big team, fundamentally is important to have the apprentices there assisting the stylists…in the long-term, you see them as the future stylist, and they know that as well”

“Personally, organic grows better than recruiting outside of your company” he added “Having apprentices with you for 2-3 years and then becoming a stylist. They always know how the salon works…it’s really easy for them to build a client base.”

Taz feels the relationship between the apprentices and stylists is ‘like a family network’, as they are encouraged to support one another during the day-to-day salon work.

“That’s just how our team and how our salon runs. Without that, I don’t think our salon would run as smoothly as it does”

The Birdcage has built a good relationship with Heart of England Training, finding that the support is second to none, thanks to their assessor Bekky Earnshaw.

“we’ve got a great relationship with Bekky, our assessor, and the girls have got a really good relationship with her as well…her communication is really good. So, yeah I’m really happy with HOET”.

This summer, they invited school leavers to attend their Taster Day. With the help of Heart of England Training, they were able to successfully market the event on social media as well as have the confidence to contact local schools in their area.

Taz felt that the Taster Day was a way to think outside the box when recruiting for an apprentice.

“As the years have gone on, the traditional interview process just wasn’t working” he said “so I thought it was a really good idea, it was really successful…everyone that came left wanting to do hairdressing, and that’s the best outcome you can get”. You can find out more about the Apprenticeship journey of The Birdcage with our video – Click here