You won’t know for sure if working with family is a good or bad thing, until you experience it. Kagiso Pilane, a member of the Royal Council of the Bakgatla-Ba-Kgafela Tribal Administration – a popular mining, tourism and community development family-owned business in Rustenburg – gives us an inside scoop of the real pros and cons of working with family.
PROS
- You have easy access to your staff, even after hours if you are a workaholic.
- It rules out the new employee awkwardness and the time it normally takes to get familiar with them.
- You get to spend even more time with your loved ones.
- The family will usually also respect the values of the business as much as you do.
CONS
- If you are the boss, family members may not take you seriously.
- Too much time spent together may lead to conflict, which could affect your relationship outside work.
- You might find a relative shrugging off a direct order in front of other employees or undermining your authority in other ways.
- Firing a family member may have disastrous results for your personal life.
HOW TO MAKE IT WORK
- Create a clear, written outline of each person’s major job responsibilities.
- Communicate early and often about any personal or work-related issue that could cause tension.
- Give each other as much physical space as possible, so as not to feel on top of each other all day, every day.
- Call relatives by their real names at work to create a professional environment and equality. Don’t use words like cuzzy, sistas, etc.
- When it comes to not getting enough respect from your family at work, normal disciplinary procedures should apply when disrespect is sensed.
- Most family members tend to expect a better salary than others. However, recruitment of family members should be subject to normal hiring processes.
- If you suspect that one of your family members is slacking in their work, you need to treat them like everyone else; they would need to be reprimanded.
- It’s important to draw the line between being a boss and being a sister/brother for example. Situations that are not handled well could have a negative effect on team members who are not family. It can also be detrimental to your performance as a boss.
- Try to remember that your family members will sometimes bring their personal problems to the workplace. It’s only natural, as they would be seeing each other and taking advantage of this opportunity.
- Most importantly, employ a family member based on their qualifications, and not because they are family.
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