« Naked Conversations book launch | Main | Good thinking at airport security »
January 23, 2006
Keeping things in the families
I started my business with an unrelated partner; my father, mother, and brother joined early on. And over the years that has been a pattern: we don't just hire people, we hire families. More than a quarter of our employees have a family member working here, too.
We have two quartets of mom-dad-sons. A dad-daughter pair. Three sisters. A dad-son-cousin triplet. And husband-wife pairs? Lots, both hired and "grown on-site".
People from the same family often share the same values and work ethic. Chances are, a great employee comes from a family of great employees. (And if not, the family knows it. I have been encouraged not to hire someone's relative, too.) Having so many family connections throughout the company also improves inter-department communications. We have a killer grapevine.
We try to avoid having family members in positions where they supervise each other, and there are some downsides: We have lost employees in pairs because of a family relocation. It can be awkward when we choose not to hire an employee-recommended relative.
Overall, though, the experience has been great. "Our corporate family" it is more than an empty phrase, and I like it that way.
Posted by Bob Pritchett at January 23, 2006 04:00 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://blog.logos.com/mt-cgi/mt-tb.cgi/62
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Keeping things in the families:
» Carnival of the Capitalists #121 from PHOSITA
Welcome to the 121st edition of Carnival of the Capitalists! We here are known as PHOSITA (pho – see – tah) : an arcane bit of patentese that refers to the mythical person of ordinary art. If an invention is... [Read More]
Tracked on January 30, 2006 06:42 AM
Comments
When the business gets a little rough, who will you lay off first, your brother ot his? Will you promote his kid brother to manage your parents? There is a reason why successful family businesses are torm up and divided among the heirs / gen 2 members...
Posted by: Anonymous Coward at January 30, 2006 02:09 PM
Great reading, keep up the great posts.
Peace, JiggaDigga
Posted by: JiggaDigga at April 6, 2006 09:49 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)