A few months into a successful general manager appointment, everyday problems no longer wait for the founder. Complaints, staff cover and supplier issues are handled within agreed limits. The founder stays involved in the decisions she retains, with a scheduled review of anything that needs her attention.
Hiring a general manager for a clinic or studio starts with a role brief written before anyone is interviewed. It settles six decisions: what the manager owns outright, what stays with the founder, which numbers the manager answers for, who the team reports to and from when, how the handover runs, and how both sides will know it is working. Assess candidates against the decisions the founder will delegate.
Two questions sit outside the brief and are worth settling first. If the case for the hire is mainly a stretched team, the four ways to add capacity that are not hiring are worth ruling out. And if the ceiling is the founder's own treatment hours, a manager will not lift it alone: the limit is then the treatment diary, which is a different piece of work from running the business.
What does the general manager own outright?
The manager owns the recurring decisions that keep the week running, each with a limit written beside it. Each row below is a clause a candidate should read before an offer, because it is the authority they are being hired to use.
Rota and cover. What the manager does: Builds and changes it. The written limit: Within the agreed staff hours. What the founder sees: A weekly summary
Stock and supplier orders. What the manager does: Places and chases them. The written limit: Within a monthly budget. What the founder sees: Spend against budget, monthly
Complaints and goodwill gestures. What the manager does: Resolves them. The written limit: Up to an agreed value per client. What the founder sees: Anything above the limit, plus a monthly list
Front desk and service standards. What the manager does: Trains and checks against them. The written limit: The written standard. What the founder sees: Exceptions only
Support roles, such as reception. What the manager does: Selects, appoints and onboards. The written limit: Within agreed headcount and pay budget. What the founder sees: The appointment and start date, after the decision
Some limits will be set too tight or too loose at the start. The brief says when they are reviewed, so a limit can move openly instead of being quietly ignored.
What stays with the founder?
The founder keeps the decisions that set what the business is: the prices, the menu or timetable, the standard of treatment or teaching, the brand, and the few relationships the business rests on, such as the landlord, a key partner or the most senior practitioners.
The list is short on purpose. If the founder keeps too much, the manager runs the rota and little else, and the team learns that anything that matters still goes to her. If she keeps too little, the business can drift from what clients chose it for, with nobody whose job it is to notice.
Between the two sit the shared decisions, and these need the most care in writing. Hiring a practitioner or an instructor is one: the manager can run the process while the founder judges the clinical or teaching standard. A price change on a single service is another: the manager may see the case first in the diary, and the founder decides. For each shared decision, the brief names who proposes, who decides and how quickly an answer comes back, so that when one stalls later, both of them can check it against the page rather than against memory.
Which numbers does the general manager answer for?
The manager answers for the numbers the role can move, agreed before the start date, with the day each week or month they are reported. A workable set for a clinic or studio:
- Booked treatment hours against available treatment hours by practitioner, or places booked against places offered by class.
- Team cost against revenue, month by month.
- Rebooking or repeat attendance.
- Stock spend against the agreed budget.
- Complaints, and how long each took to close.
Revenue as a whole is shared, so agree which booking and staffing decisions the manager can change before setting any target. If bookings fall, compare enquiries, conversion to bookings, cancellations and practitioner availability: fewer enquiries call for a different response from uncovered shifts. Review revenue with the founder alongside price and service mix, so the manager is not judged on a total that depends on decisions outside the role.
Keep a log of delayed approvals beside these figures, noting what was waiting, who could decide and what information was missing. The signs that operations have not caught up with growth describe approval and knowledge gaps in product brands; in a clinic or studio, the log shows whether similar gaps are holding up the manager's work.
Who does the team report to, and from when?
From the date set in the brief, questions within the manager's remit go to the manager. A direct route to the founder stays open for the decisions she keeps and for any concern about the manager.
For example, a therapist may still text the founder about a rota swap after the handover. If the swap falls within the manager's agreed limits, the founder redirects it without deciding. If it needs extra paid hours beyond those limits, the manager brings it to the founder with a recommendation.
Senior practitioners need their own line in the brief. One arrangement has them report to the manager on hours, leave and conduct, and to the founder on the clinical or teaching standard. Another keeps them with the founder until the manager is established. The choice depends on whether the practitioners see the manager as able to judge their work, and on how many days the founder is still on site. A change in who someone answers to is also where the quiet failure of leadership in a founder-led team can begin, so the founder tells each senior practitioner herself, before the start date, who they now answer to and on what.
How does the handover run?
Before the candidate accepts, set out what they will take responsibility for, when that authority begins and what support they will receive. The handover plan should cover three things:
1. The starting remit. Which rows of the ownership table are the manager's from the first day, which follow, and the date each one moves.
2. What is handed over in writing by the start date. The supplier to call when a delivery fails, the clients who need particular care, the standards nobody has written down, and the current limit on each decision.
3. The review dates. When the remit is next looked at, who attends and which records are read.
Drafting those particulars, the limits and the review dates before the advert goes out is where Operational Excellence comes in.
How will both sides know it is working?
Both sides read the records the brief already names, at the review dates in the offer: the numbers the manager answers for, the delayed-approvals log and the exceptions sent to the founder under each limit.
Agree with the candidate before the offer which of those each review reads, and what result would widen the remit, hold it or narrow it. The first review is then a reading of records both sides agreed in advance, not the first time either of them hears the test.
Questions owners ask about hiring a general manager
Should a clinic promote its practice manager or hire a general manager from outside?
Three things decide it together. Has the practice manager already been making some of the decisions the brief hands over? Will the team accept them in authority over former peers? And does the next stage need experience of running something larger? For an internal candidate, check whether respect as a colleague extends to accepting their decisions as a manager. For an external one, ask how they would learn the clinic's routines and relationships. Judge fresh thinking from each person's proposals, not from where they work now.
Can one general manager run two sites?
Map the manager's recurring work at both sites, including travel, staff support and time needed on the floor. Then test an overlap: a practitioner absence at one site while the manager is handling a complaint at the other. Name who can act locally and which decisions can wait. If both sites need the manager at the same time, change the local responsibilities or the role's coverage before offering it as a two-site job.
How can a clinic or studio assess a general manager candidate's judgement?
Give each shortlisted candidate the same invented rota problem, with the available staff, the cost limit and the service standard provided. Ask what they would decide, what information is missing and what they would refer to the founder. Compare how each uses the limits and explains the choice, rather than relying on how confidently they describe past roles.
When is a clinic or studio not ready for a general manager yet?
Read the role's workload, decision authority and affordability together. List the recurring decisions, name what the founder will delegate, and forecast the full employment cost through normal and quieter trading, including cash already set aside for the hire, rather than reading it against one quiet month's margin. If the proposed role does not fit that combined picture, revise its scope or start date before advertising.
The role brief, and the clause to settle before the advert
Collected from the six decisions, the brief reads:
- The purpose of the role, in two sentences.
- The decisions the manager owns outright, each with its limit.
- The decisions that stay with the founder.
- The shared decisions, with who proposes, who decides and how fast.
- The numbers the manager answers for, and when they are reported.
- Who reports to the manager, and the date that starts.
- The starting remit, what is handed over in writing by the start date, and the review dates.
- The records each review reads, and what would widen, hold or narrow the remit.
Contract terms, notice and employment status are questions for an employment adviser, and sit outside this brief.
One line in that list carries two people's judgement at once: who decides when a practitioner or instructor is hired. The manager runs the process and the founder judges the standard, so before advertising, settle who can say no, at which stage, and what happens if the two disagree. At final interview, each candidate works through an invented appointment using that clause, and the clause the chosen candidate accepts is the one written into the offer.
If you are considering a general manager, start a conversation about defining the role, the authority it needs and what the founder is ready to hand over.
Gaia Gabiati, Consulting Lead at The Boutique Consultancy. A decade across health clubs, private members' clubs, hospitality, wellness and multi-site aesthetics clinics, from Milan through Harvey Nichols, Virgin Active, Third Space and Soho House, to running the operational side of multi-site luxury aesthetics clinics.