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Managing Family Members
Why it is sometimes
difficult for a father or mother to have their son
and/or daughter as an employee in their privately-held,
family business? One very difficult situation is how to
handle termination. Terminating an employee is always
difficult and must be handled carefully for the sake of
both the departing employee and for the business
itself. But what if the employee you have to terminate
is your son or daughter (or in-law, cousin, etc.)?
The true challenge
for an owner is to balance the competing roles of leader and
parent. Here is a way that one father handled it:
The father/business
owner calls his son into the den at home. Dad is
wearing a baseball cap which has the word BOSS
embroidered on the front of it. “Young man,” he says,
“your work record has been below the company standards.
Your attendance has been abominable, and your sales have
been below quota. You also seem to have personality
problems with the staff. In light of these serious
issues, I regret that I must terminate you
immediately.”
Then the father
removes the cap and takes out another one that says POP
on it. He puts his arm around his son and says, “Son, I
understand that you have just lost your job. What can
mother and I do for you and your wife? How can we
help?”
Sound far-fetched?
Wouldn’t it be great if it were possible to handle it
exactly like this and have it be effective? Many family–owned businesses are experiencing variations of this
theme on a daily basis. The parent in a family owned
business often has to figure out how to separate the
concerns and issues of the boss, from the sensibilities
of a parent in order to make the right business
decision. How are you helping your child by keeping
them on when they are not performing? Is this in their
business interest as well?
Making this transition
can be very difficult for the parent/business owner.
But it isn’t hard when assisted by able, objective,
third-party guidance. We work with family/business
issues like this regularly. Hard for POP, but not hard
for us. We’d be happy to have a conversation to help
you explore the issues and approaches that work.
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