IT Employment

General discussion

Gravatar
Locked

Hiring family is not always a bad idea

By mdallas ·
I've worked with companies that had anti-nepotism policies and those that didn't. Originally, I was in the anti-nepotism camp, but have since seen some compelling examples to change my point of view.
About fifteen years ago, three of my daughters worked in the same department at a local university, one full time and two as student workers and the comments I heard at the time were that if you hired one of the Dallas girls, you had an employee with a good work ethic and the adaptability and intelligence to do a good job, no matter what they were assigned to do.
Later, I worked for two companies, one a manufacturing plant and another a distribution center, that hired family members. These usually turned out to be some of their best workers. What I observed was that if Jr started to slack off, usually it was the relative that got him on with the company that took him to task first, before management ever got involved, and told him to shape up or ship out, that they didn't want his behaviour affecting their job. This seemed to work very well in both of these companies and probably reflected some of the same work ethic and adaptability issues that had resulted in my daughters working together. So hiring family members is not always a bad idea if they are hired for the right reasons.

This conversation is currently closed to new comments.

2 total posts (Page 1 of 1)  
Thread display: Collapse - | Expand +

All Comments

gravatar
Collapse -

Is this an Orphan?

by cmiller5400 In reply to Hiring family is not alwa ...

Was this suppose to be in response to an article or another discussion?

I agree with most of what you said, but there shouldn't be a reporting relationship involved in non family owned companies.

gravatar
Collapse -

Many years ago

by mjd420nova In reply to Hiring family is not alwa ...

My very first job was in a small one man bakery owned by my Father. Greasing pans, moping the floor and cleaning racks was all part of the job. I took a job at another shop on the urgings of my Dad and learned a big lesson in life. No room for slackers on the floor. Everything will run fine if every member of that team does their job and in a timely manner, this includes the floor sweeper too, can't have him trying sweep while the mixer is dumping, a simple adjustment of ten minutes and it'll be clear for twenty minutes. Common sense and staying out of each others way while still not being held up on meeting production schedules without standing around wondering what to do next. I enjoy having my children work with me anytime they want and each has taken me up on this. A ride along was fun and I was able to plan a few out of the way satelite earth station links at private residences on the north end of the Napa Valley. Now this was usually a four hour job and with the help I had I was able to spend more time on the nuances of alignment of the dish and establishing up link speeds as boasted by advertising. None has decided to learn anything having to do with anything electronic. Skilled operators with a joystick/controller. Now there are certain aspects of their occupations that I would bot enjoy but all jobs have those aspects and some are more bothersome than others. I hate any job where it takes me just as a long or longer to get to a job than to do the job.

Back to IT Employment Forum
2 total posts (Page 1 of 1)  

Start or search

Related Discussions

Related Forums