SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

Wednesday's Woman: Tips Before Putting Your Honey on the Payroll

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008, 02:53 PM ET

Would I ever hire my husband to work for me? God, no. And I write that with love.

We just have different temperaments, that's all. I won't elaborate. Can't make me. I'm so patient and calm and even-keeled that your powers of persuasion will be futile.

Oops.

Anyway, as a recent New York Times article points out, some married couples are taking a second plunge, working together in their own businesses where the wives are in charge: "At a time when high-profile women have suffered some setbacks on Wall Street and when women in general still struggle for pay parity, a group of entrepreneurs has proved that women are comfortable not only with running their own companies, but also with having their husbands work for them."

Just how many husbands work for their wives has not been measured, though NYT cites these Center for Women's Business Research findings: "Women were the majority owners of 7.7 million privately held firms at the end of 2006, up 42.3 percent from 10 years earlier."

The article goes on to profile a handful of couples who are happy with their, um, wife-on-top arrangement, then acknowledges that men who'd feel threatened probably wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place: "It was the wives who tended to be more sensitive about the potential pitfalls of having their husbands on the payroll."

In fact, one of the women interviewed says she and her husband trade off who gets the higher salary each year. (Huh? She's CEO and he's COO.)

A theme that ran through all of the couples' stories is the need for a clear delineation of roles - -a balance of powers. That and sincere respect for each others' strengths, particularly given women are the ones in the visionary (read: traditional male) role. Said one husband, in the temp-staffing biz: "I said to [my wife], 'I can’t see the larger picture, but when you lay it out for me, I can make it happen,' so why would I fight against that?" And another, in the restaurant biz: "It was obvious that she was more developed in the business side. Bless her, I am a happy chef."

In the interest of balance, the article ends with a couple who wound up divorced nearly a decade after the husband began working for the wife. Six more profiles of couples working together, from Fortune Small Business, follow the same pattern, though not all of the husbands work for their wives.

Tell me what you think. Is working with your spouse, in general, a good idea? (Another FSB article points to five economically based reasons why it's worth consideration, but I'm really talking more from a perspective of dynamics.) How about when the husband specifically works for the wife? As the NYT puts it, can such as "unconventional partnership" really be successful?

I'll also ask you the same question that's posed in a BettyConfidential article on the same topic: Would you hire your husband?

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Previous Wednesday's Woman articles:
>> What Working Women Want Mo$t
>> Do Wedding Bells Cause Last Name Hell?
>> Meet Mytopia Co-Founder Galia Ben-Artzi
>> Hear Our Ringtones Roar
>> The Makings of a Smooth Maternity Leave
>> A Rocker Girl's Journey to Tech CEO
>> Why So Many Women Are Bolting From Tech
>> Meet TodaysMama CEO Rachael Herrscher

The Wednesday's Woman series is written for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest. As always, send your ideas to Gayle Kesten.

Women in Business

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