Develop a Policy for Hiring Friends Before Someone Asks to Work for You
If you are in charge of hiring a company – yours or someone else’s – you will likely find a friend who wants you to hire them. Before that happens, make sure you have a personal policy.
As tips site The Muse points out, hiring friends can quickly go bad if you’re not careful. Friends can take advantage of your previous relationships instead of treating you like a boss. You may find it harder to fire a friend if they are not doing well. Your special relationship with this person may affect the perception of you by other employees. Even in a small company that you start on your own, it can be difficult to overcome this obstacle. In some cases, you can completely eliminate this possibility:
Avoid this dire outcome entirely by telling your buddy from the start that you value their friendship so highly that you don’t want anything to jeopardize it. Beyond your job, it’s helpful if you make a general policy so that your contact doesn’t feel personal – and that you don’t have to have this awkward conversation all the time.
Of course, sometimes you might be comfortable hiring friends, and this is a decision that only you can make. However, it is still useful to have a valid policy. Maybe this policy means they never hire friends, or maybe it means that friends will always obey someone else in the company. Maybe you just set some ground rules with them before they get hired. Regardless of what your rules are, having them before hiring someone shows that you are serious about the matter.
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