I am part of a family business where, recently, lines were crossed when personal grievances were brought into the workplace. As HR director and a family member, what is the best course of action to protect the business and the family relationship? Also when is a family business just too toxic to remain?
Context: 40 employees, 3 family members on the executive team, 2 married, no previous feedback or performance shared or documented that warranted the personal attacks brought into the workplace.
Family businesses are known to be challenging – all that history and baggage, navigating the inherent family dynamics on top of what comes up in the work context can be tough. Roles and responsibilities get muddied up. Non-family members see interactions between family members and it can affect the level of trust and faith they have in the family’s ability to effectively run a company.
I have no guidance as to when it’s “too toxic to remain” (and, as usual I’d recommend changing mindsets from toxic to understanding that people act from their fears, disappointments, and feelings – the root cause, and that’s where help is needed). That is an individual call to make – assessing how much tolerance you have to stay in the environment, knowing what you want out of any career experience and how much it’s costing you on any given day, and how much it’s limiting your potential, what it would cost from the family perspective to leave the business, etc.
Ultimately, I’d think you’d be striving for a business environment that can be held separately and unaffected by “family matters,” in a healthy way. Meaning that people could swear to keep family matters out of business operations, but they’re just saying it and passive-aggressively behaving like the 3rd child they are, for example.
Conflict presents an opportunity. The incident could be discussed with the family members involved and the non-family leader and you from as objective and compassionate a position as possible.
- Express compassion and understanding for why the incident happened at all.
- Talk about the immediate impact on the business and the longer-term effect on the 40 people working there, whose trust you need to run the business well.
- Stay out of the family part, the emotions that brought the conflict into the workplace.
- Do a roles-and-responsibilities-clarifying exercise, especially around decision-making. Include a decision-making process that specifies in which situations any particular person has sole and final rights (after information is gathered) and in which situations the interest of the business would require a more consultative or consensus-driven approach.
- Acknowledge that conflict is inevitable, whatever the source is (family matters or business matters) – and devise a “breakdown plan” that everyone can agree to. “When we have this type of conflict, we’ll do XYZ.”
- Some light education on conflict resolution (there is no TRUTH, just our individual perceptions, what kind of conversations need to happen to resolve the conflict) and effective communication skills (clarifying and confirming, acknowledging emotions before trying to be logical).
- Clarify the intentions and goals of the business – return to these when conflict happens as a reminder that family matters need to be handled outside the business.
Family businesses are hard. As someone whose father started his own business and now as someone who has started my own, it’s a delicate balance both ways.
From an HR perspective, I’d actually step away from this situation for a moment and ask yourself what are your own core values as a person and where are your lines and boundaries. If it feels too messy for you, then it is likely driving your cortisol and stress levels up, and that’s not sustainable.
I have always found that if it seems messy now, it typically only gets messier.
What policies or guidelines have you put in place to address family or romantic relationships between employees?
Context: I want to make sure we’re keeping things fair and preventing favoritism.
Tricky situations we humans bring to the table!
First, any policies must be in a handbook or similar communications that all employees receive upon starting their employment so that expectations are clear and there are no surprises.
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Second, the policy should be that relationships are disclosed to HR – with the intention that job mobility and promotions could be affected. People will ask “When do we disclose? After 1 date, 3 dates? How do we know?” And the answer is that in general this is why the phrase “Don’t fish off the company pier” exists. We love love, but it can complicate things. The two people should decide together when to disclose, with this full understanding of why it’s important to do so.
Third, the intention of the policy should be stated to be about promoting and protecting a healthy and safe work environment for everyone.
Fourth, the spirit of the policy should be stated as an acknowledgment that we are human beings. We love love. We don’t want to stand in the way of love. But things don’t always work out.
Fifth, this is about human stuff – so the language in the policy should be human sounding, not all policy and procedure-y. Be transparent about what we’re trying to avoid.
There are different scenarios that can happen, all of which must be disclosed:
- Supervisor & direct report (or anyone in the supervisor’s reporting chain). One of the people must be moved out of the reporting chain.
- Different teams and departments.
- Teammates: I’ve seen this handled in different ways, my recommendation would be to move one of the people off the team.
- More senior person and more junior person.
Upon disclosure of the relationship, take whatever action is necessary and have each person sign a “Relationship Disclosure” form. This is to protect them and to protect the company, to keep the relationship as separate as possible from the business. There are lots of samples of those out there in the world!
I second everything Sondra said here.
In terms of relationships, we spend so much time at work (1/3 of our lives!) that it makes sense that people will find love there. We don’t want to hinder that. We just want to make it easier for boundaries to be drawn, accepted, noted, and understood – and if we can do that, then most people will do their best to go along with the rules provided.
