Podcast episode (Secret Sauce of Outsourcing #431) by John Jonas discussing whether employers should hire family members of current Online Filipino Specialists (OFS). Jonas shares personal practices (routinely accepts recommendations from his team, vets referrals, uses interviews and DISC testing) and includes Julia’s perspective on cultural norms in the Philippines, boundary-setting, and the reputational incentives that make employees cautious about recommending poor candidates.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS. This is episode 431. Should you hire a family member? So I haven't been asked this question very many times, but should you hire a family member of someone on your team? There's, like, pros and cons to this, and I'm going to cover this in this episode. So here's what prompted this podcast episode. I get this email from Jeff. He. He says, hey, can you write an article about how OFs feel about hiring family members? One of my current OFs has told me that a family member is applying for a sales job that I posted. I am mildly concerned that my current ofs will be mad if I don't hire her family member. Even if the family member doesn't interview well, or the family member might end up being let go and my current ofs will be mad at me or for some reason, I might need to try. I might need to let my current ofs go and the family member ofs will be mad at me or some other unknown situation that might come up. Mixing family and business as an American, I feel like these concepts are well understood and accepted, but I would love to hear how they think about it over there. Okay, so I'm going to first give you my thoughts on this, and then I'm going to tell you Julia's thoughts on this. So for me, we hire family members all the time. And actually, usually when I'm looking to hire someone, that's my first thought is, I'm going to go to my team and see, do you have someone that you can recommend for this job? And often they're going to recommend to me a family member, which recently I went to people on my team and said, hey, we're looking for someone to do SEO content writing. And one of my SEO people said, hey, my wife is looking for this job. She has 10 years of experience in SEO content writing. She's amazing. Sweet. Let me interview her. Perfect. She works out great. Now we have both Mark and his wife working for us. It's fantastic, right? Another one of the SEO people on my team said, hey, let me go check for you and see what I come up with. She came back to me with someone else who she recommended who was not a family member who I ended up hiring. And she's also really, really great. The reason I go to my team, one, it's easy, right? I know it's easy. Two, I know that jobs online jobs are sought after in the Philippines, jobs working for a reputable, honest, good company is. It's really sought after in the Philippines. And so if I can help those who are already working for me, help them bring someone else in. Yep, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm happy to do that. And I recognize in telling you that it's okay to hire family members that you're. That means you're not going to come to onlinejobs ph to hire someone the next time you're ready to hire someone. Right. I'm okay with that. At some point, you'll come back to online jobs because someone doesn't have a recommendation or whoever it is, didn't interview well, which I've had, that someone sent me a recommendation and I was. And I interviewed him and I was like, you know, I'm sorry, this just isn't the right fit for this job. I'll keep you in mind for the future, for maybe another role. And that in that situation. Well, that. That was hard. That was hard. One more thought on this before I read you what Julia wrote to me about this. So I know that my people that work for me, they. They like their job, they want to keep their job, and they're concerned about their reputation. And so if they're going to recommend someone to me, they. They're first going to vet that person. Like, they're gonna say, is this, Is it okay to recommend you? Are they really good? I recently had one of my people send me an email saying, I have someone that would be good at this, but I don't trust them. Like my cousin, whatever. Whatever is really talented, but I don't trust him as a person. And so, no, I don't have someone to recommend for you. So when they're recommending someone, they're sticking their neck out like they're putting their reputation on the line. And. And that's a big deal for them. So I think Jeff's concern of the family member might end up being let go. And then my current office is mad at me. Well, yeah, your current office is going to be mad at the family member first and foremost. That's their problem. So if they're going to recommend someone that recommendation, they're probably really good. So now to what Julia wrote, which Julia was recommended to me by her sister, and Julia recommended to me her husband, both of whom are fantastic. So here's what Julia says about we won't recommend a family member unless we're sure the person would be a good worker. We'd lose face if that person ended up being horrible. I have some family members with the skills to work in onlinejobs ph that I wouldn't recommend because I knew they were unreliable and I'd be embarrassed to mention them. I understand Jeff's concerns. It seems obvious, but mixing family and business is typical here in the Philippines, families pass down businesses. We recommend each other for work if they're eligible. It's tough to find work, so when an opportunity comes up, we prioritize recommending family members to help them out. But we also understand that businesses hire the best people. We know it's not personal. Having a stable job in a growing company will help our family more. However, I also agree that it could cause issues when healthy boundaries aren't set. I have a system with my family. We don't talk about work outside of work hours and avoid discussing personal issues while working. We agree that we never take work issues personally and always talk things out in the kindest way possible. But I know this isn't something everybody does. So in the end, for me, yeah, we hire family members all the time. And I think it's perfectly acceptable to hire family members and other recommendations from people that work for you. If it doesn't work out in an interview, well, that can be awkward. But as Julia says, they know that you're hiring the best people and maybe their recommendation isn't going to work out. One of the things I've done recently was I had people take a disc test, disc personality test. And some people that were recommended to me just didn't have the right personality fit for the role that I had. And so I said, hey, you know, I'm sorry, this isn't the right. This. This role requires a specific personality. This recommendation doesn't have that personality. So it's not going to work for me. But if it does work, it's a really easy way to find really great.
