Don’t Give Up; There’s Always Hope

Sometimes I wonder how things got so complicated.  It seems like gone are the days when you could do business on a handshake or run your business like a family business regardless of whether your employees were actual family or not.  I mean come on, you should be able to trust that your best friend from kindergarten has your back! After all they had your back all through high school and college; but sometimes you may wonder, do they still?  Is it a good idea to hire family and friends?  I believe it is, but there are some things you should know and be aware of.  

Last week, OPIE hosted a presentation by one of our integrated partners, Keystone Risk Management (Ask your CSM how you can take advantage of this resource). Their O&P expert and Sr. Risk Management Consultant, Nancy Owen, was a guest speaker and presented the topic: Discipline and Termination.  Now, don’t get upset; believe it or not, this is where the “Don’t give up, there’s always hope” comes in.  During this webinar, one of the things that stuck out to me is that you can’t have different rules for people just because of your relationship with them, or how you feel about them.  It’s tough to navigate employees, let alone one that’s a family member or a close friend.   But being consistent with and enforcing your written rules and regulations to ALL employees not only protects you and the organization, that consistency also protects the people who work for or with you.  If you are “the family member” or “the best friend,” knowing and understanding how favoritism can hurt employee morale and put the business at risk is key.    

When it comes to discipline and termination for friends and family, employers sometimes go to the extreme, they are either too soft or too hard.  For example, you can’t let your friend or family member have regular extended lunch breaks if you don’t also allow everyone else to.  How would it look to the other employees if they were reprimanded for not adhering to the lunch break policy, but you did not say anything to the friend or family member who is also not adhering to the policy?  On the flip side of that, it would also not be fair to your friend or family member if you said something to them about it and not to other employees who were ignoring it.  Actions like these can set you up for a lawsuit so you should be careful to understand the consequences.  Policies need to be enforced equally among your entire staff, while making sure that you are setting and documenting clear expectations, including any discussions and action plans defined for performance and improvement.

If you are thinking you’re alone in this struggle, you are not.  There are resources out there with step-by-step approaches along with tips for what should be documented and which approach to take when faced with the task.  One such resource is our partner, Keystone Risk Management.  If you missed our webinar on this topic, it is available, here.  If you’d like to get copies of the presentation and a copy of the Employee Discipline form mentioned in the presentation, please contact your Customer Success Manager directly or email CustomerSuccess@OPIESoftware.com.