Every time I am asked this question, I rhetorically ask back in return, are you comfortable hiring your father as a cleaner for your company? Can you comfortably ask your father to clean again spots that you feel might not be clean as the CEO or as the business manager?
You see, if your answers to these questions are no, then trust me you are not yet in a position to hire your friends and family in your organization!
Hiring friends and family requires a great business level of professionalism and maturity that goes with a great exemplary leadership style. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t hire friends and family rather hire someone you are able to promote or fire and who will be qualified enough to fit the job.
In hiring friends and family, the key thing is not considering the relationship that exists between you and the person you want to hire, but rather the qualities, the person has. For example, say you owned a soccer team, even if Mbappe was your relative I bet you would still want him in your team compared to someone random who would have just passed the first tryouts right?
But, if you decide to hire family and friends always make sure you have these two important things in check. The first critical thing is to always make sure that the person you have hired does not report directly to you. Most of the time when you let friends and relatives report directly to you, your decisions become biased, in as much that can suffer from a business analytic condition called paralysis by analysis due to the relationship you once had. Avoiding such usually works when you would have employed someone you know your organization is big enough.
The second critical thing to note is to always make your expectations known before engaging each other. Sometimes you can be good with someone as a friend but not as an employee or subordinate and it is normal. But once you feel and know that it has failed all you need to do will be to let that person go, and be never be influenced by the relationship you might have with the person to allow him to stay.
The following nine ways you can add to your list when qualifying if someone is the right fit in your organization whether there are a friend of family member:
1. Do they have the experience for the position you want to place them?
2. In the past where they good at the job or they were fired because of failing to produce results.
3. Do they have experience in your line of work, at least the person should at least have worked in a related field to your business.
4. Do they stay for long at jobs? Someone who has a habit of staying for long periods at jobs will also stay for a short period at your workplace and this can be bad for your company
5. Are they culture fit
6. Are they hard workers
7. Can they execute work fast
8. Do they need a lot of support or they can pull through alone
9. Can you learn from them, or they are the ones that you will always have to teach during their stay at work
Think about this as you plan for the coming year 2023.
