Your family business has grown over the past 50 years from an idea your grandad once had to a successful business with further potential. Whether your daughter isn’t interested in joining the family business, or it’s growing so much that you need to expand your team, it’s important to explore the idea of hiring people outside of the family.

This is because the things that make a family business work so well are also the things that make them challenging to sustain in the long-term.

Personal relationships, deep-rooted history and inherent loyalty are all ideal qualities for any small business but can become problematic if not dealt with correctly. This can make the process of hiring and managing family members one of the most difficult issues that family business owners face, with family politics having the potential to interfere with day-to-day business operations.

Hiring an external candidate can help to overcome the problem of an intertwined family history, but you have to take the time to find someone who can immerse themselves in the company culture and absorb the family values, whilst still delivering against the job they’ve been employed to do.

Although it is often preferable to keep the business in the family, your family members – whether or not they are your successors – may not have the right combination of skills or necessary experience to do a specific job effectively. It is important to regularly assess the capabilities of family members and, if there are any skills gaps, consider hiring outside the family to fill these.

This way, you are developing a full breadth of skills and knowledge perspectives to help the business thrive according to its growth plan.

And this is something that you can plan ahead for, it need not be a responsive knee-jerk reaction to meet a business’ need. If you know that you are about to hit a period of growth, you can identify, in advance, the skills that your business will require to achieve this. It could prove more costly in the short-term to hire outside of the family circle, but you can factor this in, along with the inherent benefits.

An obvious benefit is that it can give your business a good degree of scalability and flexibility as it grows. External resource can be employed at a time to suit you and, if required, recruitment can be on a case by case basis and for a limited time period to meet specific business needs. Taking advantage of non-family employees as a more disposable asset has its merits – it is hard to replace a family member, but not as hard to replace the skills of an outsider.

But considering this resource as a viable long-term investment has its advantages too, especially if they become an integral part of your business. Their value as a non-family member, who buys into the family ways, could be worth its weight in gold.

As in any business, there is always room for conflict to occur, but add in family relationships and unforgotten histories, and conflict potential has taken on a whole new level – it can arise faster and be harder to solve. Those outside of the family have the wonderful benefit of being able to offer a different (and more rational) perspective. They are not emotionally involved and often possess the skills to look at situations objectively rather than emotionally, ensuring strategic decisions are just that.

This is particularly beneficial where finances, whether that be the business’ own funds or those invested by others, are concerned. Even more so if those finances relate to people’s own money and their long-term returns. This can be a great hang-up amongst family members and the cause of much debate – but someone external to the family is often in the business for a very different set of reasons. They can offer a more impartial view, a perspective that is totally unbiassed; they simply have the best interests of the business (and its growth) at heart.

And whilst thinking long-term, it’s fair to say that many family businesses lack an exit strategy or succession plan, often because the family members simply have a greater reluctance to step down. Including an outsider into the mix, particularly as part of the leadership team, will force succession discussions in line with the wider business strategy, creating a more structured path for progression and exit. And more importantly, one that is planned and accounted for.

But before you take the step to hire in external resource, it is important to ask yourself the following questions:

• Why do you want to employ someone outside the family?
• What responsibilities will they undertake and at what level of autonomy?
• What skills gaps are they looking to fill?
• What kind of experience, personality and competencies are required for them to fit in with the company culture (and the family)?

Once you have answered these, you will be in a better position to identify whether or not looking outside of the family is the right solution for your business.