Avoiding nepotism practices in your business starts with having a stewardship mindset. When we have a stewardship mindset, we see our business and our family as things entrusted to us by God, and we acknowledge that God owns everything. Because we are stewards, we should seek to run our businesses and families in ways that honor God, including being just and fair.
Part of good stewardship is hiring the best people for each role and providing fair opportunities to all employees. Here are some practical steps to create anti-nepotism hiring and promotion practices in your business:
- To ensure the family business does not default to nepotism, have an active anti-nepotism policy in writing. An example might be making sure that relatives report to non-family employees unless unavoidable (for example, when a family member gets promoted to the top management team).
- When hiring family members, make sure they are fully qualified and competent for their role. Have job descriptions list the qualifications and expectations that come with the job in detail. This will help leaders to be objective and fair when they are evaluating candidates.
- Make sure your hiring process is transparent by keeping the company’s system for hiring and promotions visible to everyone in the company. Additionally, consider creating a process for making hiring and promotion decisions that require the approval of a third party, such as an HR department or a board of directors.
- Use performance reviews or another form of regular evaluation to provide accountability and clarity regarding employee’s job expectations.
Sometimes, being good stewards of our businesses might mean we have to decline a family member who wants a particular position. Our next post will look at how to love our families well while stewarding our businesses.
You can return to the first post in our series here.
Chew On This
What hiring practice do you want to implement to protect against nepotism?
