Running a family business comes with the joy of working with your near and dear ones, people who understand you better than anyone else. While in every other business you have to build a rapport with your employees, a family business saves you the trouble. However, a family business comes with its own share of difficulties. Saying no, for example, could be the biggest!



Although every family has its own way of dealing with difficult times, there are a couple of things that could be done to ensure workplace harmony.

Assigning responsibilities: Often, the status of being a senior member of the family is incorrectly perceived as a measure of superior skills. Likewise, the youngest is assigned lighter responsibilities without much forethought. Though it makes perfect sense to hire family in your family business, you need to think of recruiting the right person for the right job. Once in, set the same standards for your family members and other employees.

Meeting performance standards: How do you push your family to put in more effort than they already do? The pay check helps with other employees, but if it is next of kin that needs disciplining, how does one deal with it? Hence, it is important to have policies about performance measures outlined right at the outset and communicated effectively to everyone involved. This is more important when younger members are being absorbed into the firm; setting such standards will only help them achieve their potential.

Maintaining professionalism: If you have family members at different hierarchical levels within the business, then stick to working through proper channels. While you might want to run to your favorite cousin with some work, bypassing the one who is really in charge can disrupt the harmony at work and home.

Separating the turf: Keep this in mind especially when your spouse shares your workspace. Dragging domestic fights to your workplace will ruin the atmosphere at work for everyone. Maintaining this code of conduct with every family member involved is difficult, but imperative in order to run a good business. This does not, however, undo the fact that family comes first. So if a relative is going through a crisis, then tend to that first.

Go over decisions twice: Being a part of your family business becomes a great deal more difficult precisely because family is involved. You might feel pressured to do things you do not want to, and find it more difficult to implement any changes that are necessary and so on. Whatever be the problem, maintain your cool and communicate every decision only after analyzing its impact on the family; more so, If the decision has far reaching consequences.

Read about the seven must avoid mistakes in “Keep the Family Baggage Out of the Family Business: Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins That Destroy Family Businesses” by Quentin J Fleming, available at amazon.com

Whether it is recruiting your family into a new venture or working for the family business that has been around for years, when family is involved, it's a different ball game altogether. A whole lot of issues will need tending to; many more emotions will have to be taken into consideration, but at the end of the day business is still business. The challenge lies in how you blend the two to make a success story.