Should you have hired your spouse, I hope this works for you. It didn’t work for me. I discovered things about each of us that I wish I had considered (or known) beforehand.
I’m not saying that hiring a family doesn’t work. Perhaps it does. The truth is, I have two members of the family who now work for me. Nevertheless, their hiring process, onboarding process, and review and accountability process were very different.
Perhaps if I had followed the identical procedures with my spouse, I would never have hired him. I hope what I learned doing it flawed and the things I learned doing it right might help one other woman business owner navigate dangerous waters.
Family employment
It should seem unthinkable to you. I wish I had approached my spouse’s employment the best way I had treated other members of the family and staff. I hope you have a procedure you follow for each your loved ones and staff. Unfortunately, for me, I placed my spouse within the “exceptional” category. He was not.
Don’t get me flawed. He was “unique” in that we were married. But let’s be honest, loving someone and living with them is different than working with them. Just as your kids behave otherwise for eight hours in school, in some cases a special version of your spouse shows up at their workplace.
Once we court, get married, and construct a life with someone, we rarely get a glimpse into their skilled lives. We hear about their performance through one lens – them. The truth is, so long as they bring about home a paycheck, we rarely query their performance.
It was me. He said he did a very good job. He worked for a similar employer for years. They didn’t fire him, so he must have been doing a very good job. He brought home a gradual paycheck. Looking back, there was one glaring red flag. They never promoted him and even gave him a raise in three years.
Normally, when someone is doing well, even when the corporate has limited funds, they fight to acknowledge, recognize and promote the worker. For instance, during difficult financial years, do you continue to evaluate your employees? Do you continue to share with them how much you appreciate them? Do you discover ways to reward similar to paid days off, celebrating at work, really meaningful tokens of appreciation like gift cards for groceries or movie tickets?
None of these items really affect your bottom line, but they do make the worker feel appreciated. None of these items happened to my husband. He began complaining that it was ageism. It was? I never checked. I would check the references of my other employees. I would seek confirmation of their values and strengths. But I never did it with my spouse because… he was my spouse.
Perhaps you do not “interview” a member of the family, or perhaps you do. Perhaps you should get another person to interview them, even when it’s someone outside of your organization, to get a very unbiased viewpoint. But one thing is of course, check the references.
You’re biased. I was. Nevertheless, in business we can’t be biased. Particularly in smaller organizations, one and all and position counts. One bad apple or an ill-fitting one can disrupt growth.
Boarding Fama
He knows me, right?! She has lived with me for YEARS. He knows I’m enthusiastic about my work. He knows my commitment to development. He watched the method. He said all the precise things. But individuals who discuss jobs also say the precise things, right?! He told me he understood what I needed and would jump into it with each feet. I trusted it. I was flawed.
He needed a job description. I didn’t really provide similar to with other positions and recent hires. I didn’t walk him through the 90-day onboarding process. Hell, I didn’t even give him every week. I trusted what he said – that he KNEW. But he didn’t.
He was shocked by the intricacies of my business. Just as I didn’t really know the one who went to work, he didn’t know the way big a business I had developed. He didn’t quite understand what I had done. He was amazed at how big my business network was. I think he was really shocked.
I should have guided him through a process that will have allowed him to learn the history, development and goals of this business I had developed. Just as I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me. He didn’t know me in business.
Sidenote: If I had known what I know now about him, I wouldn’t have hired my husband. I’m just saying.
I will say that I now plan a full onboarding for everyone. Whether or not they are job-study interns or 1099 contractors, there may be a plan and template to coach them and provides them the knowledge and strength they should succeed.
Are they impressed or surprised? Vibrant. But they will function higher after they KNOW. My spouse and I didn’t know what we didn’t know. But now we do.
Reviewing Fama
As an alternative of sitting down and telling him what he should do. As an alternative of sitting down and sharing with him the procedures he needed to follow. As an alternative of sitting down and telling him what tags determine whether he meets the job requirements or not. I would just “turn” him to a special role.
I would try to seek out things where he might be successful. I would try to seek out tasks that he could complete and make an impact. In the long run, I couldn’t guide him because he was my spouse. I didn’t need to hurt him. I didn’t need to tell him he failed. As an alternative, it was the unspoken elephant within the room at our company.
The truth is I fired a member of staff for not performing during this era. I told this individual that deadlines matter. I told the person who he was stopping the projects and the team. She wanted more cash. She wanted more responsibility. However it didn’t even meet basic needs. It didn’t suit my company.
But that was my husband. He held up projects. He was never on time with projects. He couldn’t sustain with people. He appeared to pick and select what he desired to do. But that wasn’t the job. All of us do things we like and dislike. That is the character of labor. He complained that he wasn’t “paid” enough. He said he was frustrated that the band members didn’t “respect” him.
Along with my team, I implemented a quarterly review process. It just isn’t a review like an “annual review” for promotion or salary increase. It was a chance to more consistently share what I think goes well and what needed a change of direction.
I also wanted to present my very creative team the chance to share recent ideas and thoughts. Improvements and innovations aren’t just my job. Every member of my team is extremely qualified and has a few of the very best ideas.
I noticed that my spouse was never prepared for these meetings. My team got here with designs, thoughts, and concepts to share. They thrived on having the chance to spend focused, one-on-one time with me.
But my spouse was never prepared. Partly because there was nothing positive to share. Partly because he thought he was “different.” He was not. I’m not. The truth is, I expect essentially the most from myself. Unfortunately, I expected him to work with the identical responsibility as in our home. It was becoming clear that he couldn’t be a part of this process.
Don’t wait too long
I’ve waited too long. The frustration I felt at work with my husband spilled over into the house. We each began avoiding one another. We avoided difficult conversations. We each knew we were frustrating one another. And so, eventually, the dichotomy of who he was at home and who he was at work began to feel like a lie. Do I have high expectations? Yes. Should I? Yes. should you? Yes.
When I said I couldn’t have people in business who didn’t perform well, he understood. Until he realized I meant him. He made some decisions. I’ve made some decisions. In any case, he doesn’t work for me and we’re not married. The main points don’t matter at this point. What matters is that I’ve learned that a family can only be just right for you should you follow the identical protocol as for other people and positions.
As I said, I have an incredible team. A few of them are family. Keep your standards for everybody. Hire the very best. Lead no matter person or role. Do not be blinded by another person’s role in your life. This does not end well. Trust me.
concerning the writer
Amy House, MD, business success coach, vlogger, blogger, speaker and founder Growin’ Out Loud Baby. He’s an authority in helping business owners, executives and teams achieve and fulfill what they need in business and life. With over 20 years of real-world marketing and business development experience, and entrepreneurial experience constructing his consulting, coaching, and marketing firm, he knows a bit something about what it takes to get loud.