Is it Smart to Hire My Relatives When Starting My New Business?

Here’s a question that will get you all kinds of responses. We can’t let this question go by because we hear it a lot.

There are some differences between hiring family and hiring strangers in your new business.

Here are some differences:

• Family takes things personally. Emotion enters into the picture a lot more than when working with strangers.
• Family expects things to be laid back, easier, or to receive some special treatment more so than strangers would beginning to work for your new business.
• Hours (including shifts), sick leave, vacation time, flex-time, maternity leave, 3 day weekends, holidays will all be taken quite seriously by the family members who expect you to realize that family is very important – after all, you’re part of that family.
• Pay rate. Family members might feel like they should get paid a higher weage for doing the same things others in your company are doing. In sales for instance, the member of your family that is selling for you might think he should get a little higher commission than the other salespeople in your office. If that happens you’ll have a lot of resentment from your other sales people.

Those are some of the obvious issues you’ll face when hiring family members to join your new business.

Some people might feel pressured to hire family members because the person needs a job. You might want to help out.

Should you hire someone in that case?

You have to remember… your new business is in a fragile state when first starting out. Before you start your new business you might have the patience of “Job” but you’ll soon find that patience tested by hiring family members doubling as employees. Especially family employees that can’t do the job satisfactorily and go “beyond the call of duty”.

A good policy to have is separating business from family. Personally I couldn’t imagine working with one of my close family members. A distant cousin, maybe!

Choose employees based on what they can add to your new business. Startup is a critical time where you need to be laser focused on the business – not emotional squabbles. The best business plan might be to put off hiring close family members until later when you know the business will be a success.