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.
