Monthly Archives: May 2017

Hiring family members into your business can be fruitful but it can also spell disaster if you do not follow best practices for hiring.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts.

Don’ts

1. Don’t hire a family member just to help them out.
2. Don’t make promises to family members you can’t or don’t intend to keep. This will come across as manipulation.
3. Don’t hire a family member and expect them to know what they need to do without providing the right training and coaching.
4. Don’t bring business home to the dinner table with family members. Although it is tempting to discuss business problems outside of the day-to-day hustle and bustle, you can create stress and negatively impact family life.
5. Don’t overpay or underpay the family member. Overpaying will show favoritism and help make the person feel entitled. Underpaying because a family member may affect their self-esteem.
6. Don’t forget to give feedback to the family member about their performance. It’s easier to neglect family members when it comes to feedback. This will make them feel like you take them for granted.

Follow these best practices for hiring family members and everyone will win, you, the family member and the business.

Do’s

1. Define what the need is in the business for the role that the family member can fill. Evaluate whether the person has the skills or can learn them within a reasonable time.
2. Write a role description to clearly define what the job entails including the tasks, responsibilities and knowledge and skills. This will help with point one.
3. Use a psychometric assessment to match the person to the job. You know the person well but might not see things objectively enough to assess how they fit the job.
4. Define performance expectations for the first 30, 60 and 90 days. This will help determine what you need to provide as tools and support to the family member.
5. Based on the job description and performance expectations, create a training and coaching plan to assure the family member can meet expectations.
6. Make a rule to keep business discussions at work and not bring them home where it will impede on family life and create stressful situations.
7. Make sure to pay the person according to market conditions. Do some research to work out a salary range that is competitive with the market for that position.
8. Hold regular review coaching sessions with the family member to see how they’re doing and give them positive feedback, as well as suggestions for improvement.

Hiring a family member is like hiring any new employee except it’s not. We have a strong emotional connection with family members that we don’t have with strangers or people we may know through the business world. It’s tempting to forgo best practices when hiring family members and resort to making decisions based too heavily on emotion and then justifying it logically.

I grew up in a family business that my dad started when I was nine years old. I am familiar with all the don’ts that are listed above and the impact it had on me.

Follow these best practices for hiring family members and everyone will win, you, the family member and the business.