A family business often begins with a person and his or her parent or spouse deciding to open a business. There are no stipulations on the type of business at hand, however, in order to be a family business, it must involve family working together to provide a service or product. Once the business is formed and becomes successful, the employees may no longer be members of the family by blood. Expansion may require the addition of non-family members to your staff. This is a wonderful sign of growth and helpful to the economy, even if it takes some adjustment between blood family members and these new “adopted” members of the family. However, there are some factors that may help make the differentiation less obvious and awkward for everyone involved.
TIP No1: No Favorites Allowed
One of the biggest employee concerns from non-family employees is the perceived display of favoritism. Many family businesses are owned by a parent or husband and wife. In the beginning, they hire their child or children to help do menial tasks or lower management tasks while the child learns the business to eventually take over for his or her parent upon retirement. When the business becomes bigger and takes on non-family employees as colleagues in equal positions to the children, many of these employees may sense that they are not in the same professional favor as the child. They may even believe that they do a better job or cause less issues and still get the brunt of the blame. While this is often a misconception on the part of the non-family employee, this is never a good environment for anyone. The employee feels unwelcome and may lower the morale of the entire work environment. Meanwhile, the child may feel guilty, even though he or she, and the family, have likely done nothing to perpetuate this myth. While this may be a perceived notion on the part of the employee, it is important for the owners of the business to address this fairly, making sure the non-family employee feels he has been heard and “changes” have been made.
One way to prevent this problem from occurring is to create a family participation plan. This plan is meant to memorialize the ground rules for family members working within the company. These outlines, very clearly, the compensation plans and expectations of family members. In addition, this will lay the groundwork for the contract the non-family supervisors should sign, which guarantees their job even if they are forced to hold a family member, under his or her supervision, accountable for his or her actions.
One way to prevent this problem from occurring is to create a family participation plan. This plan is meant to memorialize the ground rules for family members working within the company. These outlines, very clearly, the compensation plans and expectations of family members. In addition, this will lay the groundwork for the contract the non-family supervisors should sign, which guarantees their job even if they are forced to hold a family member, under his or her supervision, accountable for his or her actions.
TIP No.2: Business is Business and Family is Family
Another issue is non-family employees may feel as though they are pulled into family arguments on a regular basis. Most people employed by a family business are looking to work and possibly move forward or gain necessary experience. The last thing they want is to be pulled into a personal argument about which they neither know nor care anything. As a non-family employee who depends on his or her job to help pay bills and live, he or she may feel obligated to side with his or her boss and then feel awkward when confronted by the other party of the argument. It is always important to remember business is business and family is family. Your family participation plan should outline how family conflicts are to be handled in the workplace. This plan can help develop a policy for dealing with conflicts within the family and the business, including having discussions as opposed to fights and always maintaining a role-model status for other employees. Keep the business at work and the family at home. While this feeling of being pulled into the argument may be just a figment of the non-family employee’s imagination, it still needs to be addressed fairly, allowing all employees to feel heard.
These are just two of many tips to help to make the transition to expanding your workforce to non-family employees easier on you and your staff. To learn more about this type of transition and other issues plaguing family businesses on a daily basis, contact the experts at Hubler for Business Families at 612.375.0640.
These are just two of many tips to help to make the transition to expanding your workforce to non-family employees easier on you and your staff. To learn more about this type of transition and other issues plaguing family businesses on a daily basis, contact the experts at Hubler for Business Families at 612.375.0640.
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