Beauty therapy journey grooms Bay manager for great things

Behind five-star beauty therapy lies no shortage of brain power and emotional intelligence.

“A lot of people don’t know this,” says Robyn-Lee Jantjies, a 31-year-old therapist who has treated clients all over the world.

“A big part of your training is learning about anatomy, physiology and understanding the skin. You need to study the functions of the entire body – how muscles work, how skin works, the finer points of epilation (hair removal).”

Jantjies, who manages Amani Spa and Wellness at the Radisson Blu hotel in Gqeberha, is shattering stereotypes every which way.

As a young woman of colour, she is redefining how her profession is run while also playing a key role in the establishment’s overall service offering.

Today, she is as much mentor as she is experienced wellness technician and makes valuable contributions in conceptualising new ideas for the beachfront hotel.

A graduate of Total Concept, a long-established Eastern Cape health and beauty training academy, Jantjies was only 20 years old when she started working on cruise ships as a therapist.

While she had not sought out a career in the field, the lure of world travel was enough to persuade her to give it a try.

That her dream of venturing to places like Miami in the US and Jamaica in the Caribbean came so soon after leaving beauty school assured her that this was her future.

“When I left home, I was a baby. I came back as an adult. I was earning dollars, tax free, and being able to send money back to my family.

“To have that impact made me very proud as a woman of colour.”

Her experience traversing international waters taught her something else, too – how not to manage people.

The verbal abuse directed at her and her colleagues made her vouch that she would seek to motivate rather than undermine should she ever find herself in a leadership position.

“You have to nurture. You can’t treat people like they’re nothing because then you get nothing.

“I can sit with disciplinaries the whole week, but what is that going to achieve? What will I sit with? High staff-turnover, inconsistency, no loyalty.

“I am not about that life.”

She found her way back home after her stint on the cruise liners and shortly afterwards took up a position at an exclusive country house at Addo in the Sundays River Valley.

Thanks to her experience, she landed a job as a therapist and a year later rose to the position of spa manager.

It was there that she learnt the value of people working together in hospitality, filling in where needed and always going the extra mile for guests.

In February 2019, she was appointed Amani’s assistant manager and in 2021 took up the managerial role following the departure of her immediate superior.

“I don’t call myself a manager. I develop my team. I always ask my six staff members, ‘How would you treat your granny?’ The answer is ‘with love and respect’.”

One of Jantjies’ greatest bugbears is seeing spa clients being treated like a soulless business transaction – mere numbers to move in and out as quickly as possible to generate more revenue.

For her, beauty therapy should not be viewed as a service that creates “picture-perfect moments” for social media, but an experience that truly allows a person to let themselves go.

With all the stress of the modern world they need treatment that rejuvenates at the most personal level and it is not uncommon for clients to leave the room in tears, she says.

“With all the pressures and problems of life, the therapy provides some form of release. It is why we encourage our clients not to use or look at their phones during a session.

“They need this escape to zone out completely.”

Her team even work out exercise programmes for clients should they want to give themselves an extra lift outside of their sessions.

Jantjies reports to Radisson general manager Elmarie Fritz and Amani Spa and Wellness’s head office.

She praises her GM for the manner in which she trusts her young female managers to bring their own ideas to the table and collaborate. Her open-mindedness and down-to-earth nature are inspirational, she says.

“Elmarie gives us the power to make a difference and we take a big stance on staff wellness. If we don’t take care of our staff, how can they take care of our guests?

The client experience is everything to her and, as much as she hates turning people away when the spa is fully booked, she will rather have them come back at another time than “squeeze them in”.

This is a philosophy that exemplifies her qualities as a therapist and leader. It is also one that ensures clients keep coming back.

“We have a lady who travels with her mom, who is in her 80s, from East London once a month just to be pampered by us for the weekend. They then go back after breakfast on Sunday.”