Plenty of family businesses don’t start out that way. Every business owner worth their salt knows that the phrase “it’s who you know, not what you know” isn’t necessarily a pejorative: taking trusted recommendations about new hires can be great because a known quantity is often a lower risk than a complete stranger. And even in a business with no familial involvement, bringing on a family member with the skills to help your business can be the endpoint of this mode of thinking. The difficulty with this approach is negotiating the feelings of your current staff who are often predisposed to assume the worst when they hear you’ve hired a member of your family. So how can you navigate these murky waters?
Hire Equal, Fire Equal
This should be fairly obvious, but it absolutely deserves repeating: Evaluate your family member the same as you would your other employees. When hiring, ask yourself how qualified your family member is. Do they have the necessary background, knowledge, and tools to succeed in the position you’re considering them for? If other candidates are more qualified, does your intimate knowledge of your family member reassure you that they would be easy to train and likely to succeed? Your familial closeness should be one factor evaluating them as a candidate, not necessarily an over-riding “instant hire” button. The same goes for firing: you’ll do no favors for your staff morale by ignoring shaky performance. The last thing your (non-family) employees want to see is a family member skating by with mistakes that would get other employees reprimanded or fired.
Respect the Chain of Command
This one is a tough one that isn’t always immediately apparent: Treat all your employees—family included—in accordance with their position. This can be tricky because family members are often groomed to take over the business down the line, which can require special interactions. But if your other employees see your dishwasher niece suddenly get the key to the managers’ office or hear about your cashier son-in-law sitting in on high-ranking executive meetings, understandable suspicions will start to arise! Similarly, while it’s only natural to vent about work issues with family, if you leave your door open so that your family member can come to you with formal complaints while other employees are directed to their immediate superiors, people will wonder if special treatment applies to anything else.
Appearances Matter
Perhaps the most important, overarching takeaway is this: Actions speak louder than words, and appearances trump intentions in almost every situation. If your employees believe that you’re treating your family member differently than the rest of your staff, then you have a problem, whether or not you’re actually giving special treatment. Sometimes this means you may even need to be more transparent about how you treat your work relationship with your family member than you would be with other employees, just so the rest of your staff can see for themselves that they’re all on equal footing.
For years you’ve said “nope, no nepotism,” but now you’ve found that your best candidate is your relative, so what now? For advice on helping a newly hired family member fit in while still showing respect for the value of your non-family employees, contact Hubler for Business Families today to set up a free orientation meeting with Thomas Hubler, the expert on family business planning.
For years you’ve said “nope, no nepotism,” but now you’ve found that your best candidate is your relative, so what now? For advice on helping a newly hired family member fit in while still showing respect for the value of your non-family employees, contact Hubler for Business Families today to set up a free orientation meeting with Thomas Hubler, the expert on family business planning.
RSS Feed
