Stellantis' North American headquarters in Auburn Hills is teeming with experts:
There are engineers who can extract the last drop of horsepower out of two-liter engines; designers who can draft vehicle mock-ups by hand; physicists who could calculate a drag coefficient on the back of an envelope and marketers planning the automaker's next Super Bowl ad.
And on the second floor of the tech center tower, there are a few ladies who really know how to cut some hair.
I know because on Monday, Sept. 21, Pauline Yousif, co-owner of Crew Salon at Stellantis North American headquarters, cut mine.
Yousif owns the salon with her sister, Valeen Tueni. Yousif does the hair, while Tueni manages the day-to-day business operations. The two have been working together
in the beauty industry for years, beginning with their salon in Commerce Township by the same name, which they opened together nearly 10 years ago.
Yousif cut my hair and told me about her work — and the work of the clients whose hair she and her employees cut.
Business is good, Yousif said, but a year ago, it would have been dreadful. That all changed in January, when Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa ordered the thousands of white-collar Stellantis employees in Auburn Hills to return to in-person work, five days a week, at the sprawling campus. By April, the full workforce was back, some six years removed from the COVID pandemic.
For that reason, business is good for the sisters, who have somewhat of a captive audience of engineers, managers, janitors and whoever else works at the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills. The two opened the Stellantis salon in June and work out of a relatively small space, with three chairs, mirrors and sinks, a desk for doing nails and a small closet for supplies. Clients can schedule online and get their haircut during breaks.
Also available at the headquarters is a discounted in-house gym membership (which includes laundry service), two Starbucks cafes, myriad snack kiosks and grab-and-go food stations.
All told, the massive building in Auburn Hills is, in some respects, back to being a bustling little city within a city — under the second largest roof in North America, second only to the Pentagon.
The return to work at Stellantis has ruffled some feathers, but during a haircut and a tour around the building on a regular workday, I saw how the company is aiming to make the return to work more comfortable — or at the very least, more convenient — for its employees.
And I got a sweet new 'do.
Cutting hair, saving time
According to Yousif, "one of the most important things you can give somebody is their time."
The salon-at-work model, she said, offers a chance for employees to save some of their time by not having to schedule around a 9-5 job.
"I think with everybody coming back to work five days, I think in the middle of their workday being able to get a haircut, they have more family time on the weekend," Yousif said while shearing off about an inch of my hair. "They have more time to go home and make dinner rather than trying to make an appointment for their hair."
Indeed, the salon has made it easier for some of her clients who can find 30 minutes to get to her salon during work hours, she said.
Crew Salon is not the first to cut hair in the headquarters, first built in 1991 (with the adjacent 15-story tower being built in 1996). Before the COVID pandemic sent employees home, there were two salons open in the building, operating with the same theory: Save people time by providing amenities at work (Yousif and her team plan to expand into the second location soon).
Yousif knows that Crew's existence in the headquarters is to provide convenience for the automakers' employees, but she also hopes that she can add some joy on top of that.
"My sister and I are very passionate about what we do. We believe in when you look good, you feel good," Yousif said. "I think you'll perform better. You'll enjoy your day a little bit more."
There's no way to quanify how much, exactly, an in-house salon can boost productivity or morale. But Yousif said she has learned a lot about the automotive industry and gotten a glimpse at workplace morale from her clients at Stellantis. She's met people who just began in Auburn Hills after moving from places like Brazil, and she's also cut the hair of Chrysler longtimers who have been around for decades.
"They love being part of the company," Yousif said. "That to me tells me I made the right choice (to open the Salon at Stellantis). When people love where they work, they deliver better."
Previously, the salon owners in the space before her primarily cut men's hair, Yousif said. As the employee body at Stellantis has diversified, so too have the beautification options at the headquarters.
"Men's, women's, color ... We wax eyebrows, we have a 5- or 10-minute scalp massage on the menu as well," Yousif said. "Some of the women in the building are like, 'Oh my God, I can get a blowout at my job on a Friday afternoon?' Yeah, absolutely."
Highlights, too, she said, may be coming soon.
And, with productivity tantamount, each option on the salon's digital, TV-screen menu, mounted in the hall outside of the door, comes with the estimated amount of time each service would take. Fittingly, most can be squeezed in during a lunch hour with time to spare.
Back to work
In late January, when Stellantis issued its return-to-work orders, Stellantis spokespeople said at the time the move was intended to boost collaboration and supercharge the automakers' efforts to return to profitability and prowess.
Of course, with return to work orders, employees have gripes.
Online forums like Reddit are replete with complaints from employees who preferred to work from home. In March, workers were reminded of a rule about parking competitor's vehicles on company property, where some drivers who failed to drive a Stellantis brand car to work received parking "tickets" (really, just warnings) for parking in "preferred" spots.
Regardless of how employees feel about returning to work, the headquarters building is in full swing with thousands of workers roaming the halls, working from desks and grabbing snacks in a way the resembles a college campus. There were even a few workers breaking a sweat in the on-site gym.
Maria Patch, the manager at the gym who has worked there since it opened in 1992, said attendance is slowly creeping back to pre-pandemic levels.
"When we left at COVID time, we had about 2,500 members," Patch said. "That's about five or 600 members coming through each day."
Now, Patch said, there are about 1,200 members. The monthly membership costs $20, can be deducted straight out of payroll and comes with access to classes and personal trainers.
The return to work has yet to evince itself on the company's bottom line — and white-collar productivity can be hard to quantify — but it is driving foot traffic at the new, 24-hour snack kiosks, the gym, the catered lunch cafeterias, the two Starbucks and, of course, Crew Salon.
For that — more clients, more work and more relationships — Yousif is thankful.
"Doing this, it becomes a relationship. I always look at it as I'm relationship-building rather than just cutting hair," Yousif said as she put the final touches on my haircut. Then she paused.
"Would you like me to go any shorter up top?" she said.
I told her I was happy with the length — and I was.
The next day, as I got a breakfast sandwich in downtown Detroit before heading to the newsroom, the woman behind the counter — the first stranger I had met since sitting in Yousif's chair the day before — gave me a second opinion.
"I like your haircut," she said.
Liam Rappleye covers Stellantis and the UAW for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Return to work at Stellantis HQ makes good sense for salon owners
