Working with family: Genius or lunacy?

Jerry Rush, a sales representative with Royal LePage Network Realty in Red Deer, Alta., works with his two sons, Lyndon and Nathan Rush. Lyndon joined the firm in 2005 when he needed to work eight months of the year in his off-season as he was training to pilot the Canadian Bobsled Team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. After Lyndon came home with a medal, he became a full-time Team Rush member in the commercial side of the company. Younger brother Nathan joined the firm in 2008 and works in the residential arena. Jerry does both.

Working with family members has been a success for Team Rush. Jerry says this is how they’ve made it work: “We have had great family relationships throughout this time, probably due to the way the team is set up. I do not micromanage the team. Everyone is doing their own business at their own pace. We assist each other only when asked to. We share the expenses of running the office but each gets paid whatever they make in commissions. The proof of the closeness is that the wives get along and there is lots of love.”

Advantages of working with family can include:

They understand the demands of the real estate industry on your schedule and your time.
They may be more understanding when commitments outside of real estate claim your attention.
They may be a better fit when it comes to sharing the workload.
You know your coworkers well from day one, often including a level of trust you may not have with non-family members.
You are familiar with their strengths and weaknesses.
Kinfolk may be more motivated to see the business succeed than non-relatives.

Disadvantages of working with family may include:

Work stresses and issues can spill over into family life.
You may feel additional pressure to succeed.
It may be tougher to admit mistakes to family members than others.
It may be easier to take advantage of workers who are family members.
Family rivalry to be the best can be detrimental to the work environment.
Non-familial staff members may be resentful or assume colleagues are more loyal to family members.
Family members may become resentful if they feel like more work is expected of them because they are family.

Sascha Heinrich

Sascha Heinrich, a sales rep with Prudential Kelowna Properties in Kelowna, B.C., has worked with Yvonne Zwardon, his mother-in-law, for almost eight years. Heinrich was a residential framing contractor for almost a decade before that, but Zwardon was getting too busy to handle everything on her own. When she asked Heinrich if he was interested in taking the real estate course to become a real estate agent, he said yes.

Yvonne Zwardon

Heinrich took the course, quit his construction job six months later when he got his license and has been working with his mother-in-law ever since.

Joining a family business “has to be a case-by-case decision,” he says. “Yvonne and I have very strong communication skills so when we have some sort of issue, we ‘lay it out on the table’ so to speak. Everything can be solved with the right conversation. Our partnership shows how business partners can have the same interest to keep the combined clients happy and ensure that things are attended to straight away, even when one of us is out of town.”

When blending work with often-emotional family relationships, the following tips may improve your odds of success:

Draw clear boundary lines between family life and work life and try not to let the two merge.
Avoid talking about work when you’re on personal time.
Arrange schedules so you don’t spend 24 hours together every day.
Make sure each person’s roles and responsibilities are clearly defined; crafting detailed job descriptions will help. Focus on one another’s strengths when establishing roles.
Never lose your sense of humour.
Keep the focus on improvement instead of blame to avoid negative feelings or bruised egos.
Leave family issues, patterns and rivalries at home when you go to work.
Put aside traditional family roles, which is especially important when parents and children work together.
Focus on keeping things professional and not personal when you are at work, as you would with non-familial colleagues.
Have everything in writing to avoid misunderstandings.
Avoid nepotism by treating family members the same as non-family members, especially with wages and performance reviews. (Ensure there aren’t two employee classes, family and non-family.)
Clear and open communication is imperative.
When you go home at the end of the day, leave your work issues at the office.
Like you would with any staff member, have the discussion upfront regarding how someone can exit the company if it’s not working out.
Keep your family bond a higher priority than your work relationship.

If you have disagreements, don’t forget that you will be eating together at Christmas or spending time together on vacation so it’s to everyone’s advantage to move past issues.

Heinrich says, “Preventing workplace stress from spilling into our personal relationship is actually pretty simple. We (Yvonne and I) both primarily handle our own clients and when the other one needs help, there’s always the other to depend on. So I guess the only real stress would be from third parties, which having another agent who happens to be your mother in-law there to listen to you when you need to vent is really handy.”