My Best Business Decision: Hiring My Wife
By Marco Lentini, President, Gia Pronto, Philadelphia, Penn.
In 2008 my wife, Paola, got laid off from her job as a regional HR manager for a large home building company. I don't think I even hesitated before asking her if she wanted to start working for me at Gia Pronto, my casual restaurant chain in Philadelphia.
It just made sense because I knew she would be a tremendous asset for my company. She, of course, was worried about how we would work together.
Two years later, I can say that bringing Paola on was one of the best hiring decisions I've ever made. Not only has she transformed our human resources operation, but having her on board has allowed me to focus on some critical problems in my business. I trust her completely, which makes it very easy to hand responsibility off to her. And she knows me so well that she gets everything I say and doesn't require a lot of explanation.
With her help the business has grown tremendously -- our sales are now hitting $3.75 million, up 66% since 2009, and our employee headcount has reached 65.
My one ground rule
When Paola got laid off, I had two restaurants open and was planning to open two more, as well as a smaller kiosk outlet. I really needed help managing that expansion.
She was nervous about what it would be like having me for a boss. Plus, she was concerned about having all our eggs in one basket. If the business hit a rough patch, we wouldn't have any other source of income. But that was less of an issue in my mind -- I'm such an optimist.
We didn't have a formal discussion about ground rules for working together -- I'm not very formal as a manager. But we did talk about how I would need to speak frankly and that she couldn't take my criticism personally or get offended.
The benefits
In her previous job Paola did behavioral-based interviewing, which involves examining the traits and skills that have made people successful in a certain positions. She set up a similar interviewing format at Gia Pronto. One of the areas I am weakest in is human resources, and before Paola made these changes, only about half our hires would work out. Now, three out of four new employees stick around.
Working with my wife also saves me a lot of time. If there's a problem with one of our restaurants not being clean enough, I don't need to give her a checklist to run through -- she knows what details matter to me. She also negotiates deals with our vendors without needing me to look over her shoulder. I know that she'll save an extra penny if she can. After all, saving money for the business benefits our family.
The extra time has let me focus more on operations. For instance, recently I had noticed that the amount of ingredients and food we throw out was creeping up. Thanks to Paola, I had the time to overhaul our food preparation processes. I also looked at every item we carried in the stores and cut out the weak sellers. In total I shaved $112,000 off our annual costs. There is no way I could have focused on any of this if Paola wasn't there helping to run everything.
Not for every marriage
Of course we haven't agreed on everything. Last summer she started running a promotion at one of our stores. Paola felt that the goodwill you establish with that sort of offer was important. But I thought it made no sense. That particular location already had a lot of foot traffic and the promotion wasn't attracting new customers. If it was a regular employee I probably would have felt the need to say, "I'll review it and get back to you." But with Paola I can be blunt. I simply said the promotion made no sense. She agreed and was not offended.
She is very independent and very opinionated, but she recognizes that at the end of the day, I'm the president of the company and I make the final decisions. And the fact is I need to be frank with her. I don't want to have to come home at night with my game-face on; if there is a problem at work I want to be able to talk about it.
We don't set rules about when to talk about the business -- we actually talk about it a lot, even before we go to sleep. Still, we also need to set aside time just for us. That means going out to dinner and a movie and not talking about the business. It's not for every marriage -- but it works for us, and for our business.
When he's not behind the counter of one of his five Philadelphia restaurants, Marco and his family try to take time to travel to places like Italy where he picks up new ideas for menu offerings.
-- As told to Amy Barrett
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