We are pleased to share how we will be able to serve our customers even better as a result of a recent change in our Management Team.
Our General Manager, who had over a decade of laundry service experience when we launched in 2018, has been with us from the start and remains our General Manager. However, we have replaced our Operations Manager.
We operate with a General Manager responsible for overall quality and an Operations Manager responsible for training, developing, and overseeing our growing production team of Laundry Service Professionals, so a larger number of people can deliver the same quality as our most experienced team members. Our new Operations Manager has exponentially more management, hiring, and leadership experience than our prior, original Operarions Manager. He is therefore much better equipped to translate all our detailed and thorough processes and procedures into consistent implementation by a larger team of people, thereby enabling us to better maintain and improve our attention to detail as we grow.
This change actually took place over three months ago. However, we wanted to wait until some time passed and all of the Laundry Services Professionals on our team adapted to the change to make this formal announcement. All of our six driving team members who I have personally and carefully selected who have been with us for years are still with us, and we also have a new addition starting this week.
Yet, as I anticipated might happen, the past few months has resulted in some departures and even more new members joining our team of Laundry Services Professionals. The new additions are coming in under the collective expectations being set by myself and my wife as co-founders, our General Manager, and our new, far more experienced, Operations Manager. I am optimistic that the culture shift we have created recently has resulted in the removal (either deliberately by us or organically) of the former members of our team whose selection and hiring may have been either rushed (due to the rapid increase in demand for our service, while we were also navigating Covid) or made in error due to the relative management inexperience of our former Operations Manager.
Unfortunately, our prior Operations Manager lacked the management experience to be able to maintain what our new Operations Manager can maintain and achieve. As startup businesses grow, they often transition from the people they are able to attract early on as managers to having the ability to attract and pay more experienced managers. (In our case, we were able to start with a small team of people who even then had over a decade of experience with Wash and Fold laundry service. However, this is different from management expertise.)
When it became clear to me last December, 2021, that this change was both necessary and in the best interest of our customers, I began preparing and interviewing multiple potential candidates. We feel very confident that our new Operations Manager who joined us in January was an excellent choice for the long term. We are confident that his management style will lead to even greater quality, and improved service to our customers.
I have learned in life that my decision-making, while guided by experience and wisdom, is not fool proof. Inherent in life is the inescapable fact that wisdom is acquired over time. Just as I am wiser now than I was a few years ago, a few years from now I will have new hindsight on the decisions I have made recently.
So, I will close by sharing the feedback of another key member of our team on the result of our selection process. One of our long term driving team members decided in January, 2022, just as the above referenced transition was happening, to train and become a shift leader within our production team of Laundry Services Preofessoinals. She knows our philosophy and vision for the business. After spending extensive time with our new Operarions Manager, she recently said to me “I don’t know how you could have found anyone better.”
We have tried to use these notifications and messages as a source of both logistical updates and full transparency on how we operate, and how we evolve and improve over time. We apologize to those who feel we provide too much detail and transparency. We appreciate the trust you have placed in our ability to evolve and improve, to serve you better. And, we also appreciate your referrals.
Very sincerely yours,
Michael Gralnick
Co-Owner
Marin Wash and Fold