WORKING WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS – THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Havant

Small businesses are often started up by groups of family or friends working together. This can be an excellent basis for a successful venture, meaning you have colleagues who know one another and get on well. But there can also be problems, with tensions from home spilling over into the business and vice versa. Let take a look at the advantages and the potential pitfalls of working with your nearest and dearest.

Advantages

Trust: When you take on friends or family to work for your company, you have a relationship of trust from the start, you may already know their abilities and have an idea of the strengths they can bring to your business.

Getting on Well Together: Camaraderie makes life easier in the office, it can make work less stressful and more enjoyable if you are working with people you get on with making communication easier.

Engagement and Commitment: Friends and relations will often have a feeling of greater commitment to the company from the start. It is likely your business will be more than just a job to them, as they will be keen for it to succeed and may be willing to go that extra mile, and to work extra hours if this is sometimes necessary. They could have greater loyalty because they want to work with you and so be less likely to leave you for a rival business.

Disadvantages

Conflicting Roles: When you work with family, home and office life can easily get mixed up together. If there are issues between members of a family, it can affect relationships at work. Equally, if you criticise a friend or family member’s work, they might take offence and that could spill over into relationships outside the office.

Potential Problems with Other Employees: It can cause jealousy within a workplace if other staff members feel the boss is favouring their own friends or relations.  There could also be competition between family members, with tensions over issues such as pay and ownership of shares in the business.

Harder to Discipline or Fire a Friend: If a friend or family member is not pulling their weight, it can be very difficult to tell them so. It is even harder to take the decision to sack them – something which could have major repercussions for your personal life. Also, apart from disciplinary considerations, there may be problems if you need to cut a friend or relation’s hours, or to let them go if the business needs to make cutbacks. If you do have to do this, it could cause resentment at home and tensions with other friends and family members.

If you decide to work with friends or family, its worth considering the potential pitfalls in advance. You need to think over the appointment just as much as you would with a stranger, rather than rushing into it, and make sure at the outset that they are qualified for the roles they take on. Issuing a written contract which explains their responsibilities and your expectations can help to avoid confusion later on, and put the working arrangement on a more professional basis.