Please advise!

Lola815

I work for a family owned company. About 7% of the employees are family members of the owners. Normally when a job position opens we post it in house for about a week and go from there. Recently a postition opened and the son of the owners got the job without the job ever being posted. Some of the employees are upset with this. I of course found out after it happened. We don't have any written policies about every job being posted, but that is normally how we do it. I know that this was unfair, is there anything I can do now? Any sugguestions on how to deal with the upset employees? Was this totally wrong even though we don't have a written policy?

Hatchetman

I don't know if there is anything you can do to placate the upset employees on this incident.

What you need to do is disucss the matter with senior management. Identify your concern and problems you've noted and offer some positive suggestions. Don't indicate that the selection was or that management did anything unfair or wrong...but talk about perceptions of staff, morale-problem potential, etc., and steps that may help avoid those issues.

Pay attention closely to what the management response is because you don't want to be in a position to tell the owners/managers that they can't select their own family members -- as you said, it's a family owned company.

Gillian

Agreed. There is nothing that you can do to placate the other employees. Family businesses are different and the amount of family influence ranges from very little to a lot, and that has a direct impact on how the employees perceive the company. If employees feel that they have no opportunities because family members have the first shot at a job, eventually that will have an effect on morale and turnover. From your post, it doesn't appear that this has been a regular occurrence, so it you can get the owners to understand the perception of employees and post jobs all the time, you will have done a lot for your employees. The bottom line, though, is that if family members consistently win out,even with regular postings, the effect will be the same - morale problems and turnover.

njjel

If I liked my job I wouldn't say beans to upper management due to all of the reasons sited above regarding family owned companies. It's unfortunate, but I've been there before and know how it is.

Crout

Yeah, but if you can fill the open positions with family members turnover is not an issue. You WOULD need a rather large family, however. It's a shame bot blood IS thicker than employee morale.

Theresa Gegen TX

I don't agree that it is necessarily unfair for the company owners to hire their son. I think you should let the owners know that morale is suffering, but the employees need to understand that this son will probably be an owner of the company (or atleast part of the company) some day. So hiring him is probably a smart thing for the current owners to do. He needs to know the business before he becomes an owner!!

Good Luck!!

AnneLa

Been there done that.....family businesses are sometimes not the best place to be when you're trying to be fair and consistent with HR practices. I'd polish up my resume and start looking for other options.......