Small employers complain about how difficult it is to find good employees. But there’s one place that can be a terrific source of great workers — the families and friends of your best employees. After all, current employees who have great work attitudes probably have brothers, sisters, and best pals with great work attitudes, too.
But hiring friends and relatives is tricky. If not handled well, it can sour the work environment. Personal disputes can affect business interaction. Other employees may feel that a boss’s relative gets special treatment, and cliques can form.
Proceed carefully by following these tips:
• Don’t hire someone’s relative just because they need a job.
• Don’t have relatives work too closely together.
• Ask specific, detailed questions about the relative’s qualifications before you agree to interview them.
• Watch out when hiring spouses!
• Be extraordinarily cautious about working with your own spouse.
• Be toughest on your own close relatives.
• Never play favorites.
Photo by MSDesigns.
Mike @ PartnerUp on May 18th, 2007 at 7:16 am
I would add one suggestion to the list.
That would be to have your current employees, business partners, and key customers get to know your family members informally before hiring them. See how the key stakeholders in your business interact with them.
Also, if you have a business partner, you should both discuss and specifically come up with a policy regarding employing your own families. Your business partner might see it as unfair if you’re employing your entire family and none of his family works at the company. Or, he/she might be completely fine with it. But, it’s best to discuss these issues way ahead of time!
Diane on September 13th, 2007 at 6:26 am
My husband applied for a shipping position at a small company that is starting to grow, my daughter is employed there. They are really interested in hiring my husband but they are concerned about the relationship. My husband is not the father of my daughter. How can he convince them that this will be okay and not cause any problems. They are both adults and they respect each other.