By: Ranim Elgabakhngi
It happens that powerful people put family or friends in certain positions, ignoring the usual requirements. In all areas, decisions on appointments and promotions become influenced by personal relationships rather than competence. What seems like a small thing on the surface, the results quietly and widely penetrate into the teams. People’s faith becomes shaky when they see that decisions are more based on connections than on capabilities.
Defining Nepotism
Being promoted just because of your connections, and not because of your talent, is what favoritism in a family is all about. Fairness is abandoned when jobs are given to relatives without regard to their abilities. When the family relationship is more important than the person’s skills, merit is no longer considered. The chance is given unfairly when one’s family relationship is considered more than their work experience.
Reasons for Occurrence
It is very common that hiring a family member is done with the intention of having a most trustworthy teammate first of all. It is through their past together that some managers feel that family members won’t make troubles as often as others. Anyway, the idea of a family business is very much to blame – especially when the businesses remain in the hands of the family only. There, the need to have control in the family can be more important than the selection of the most qualified candidate.
Mechanisms of Practice
When a person in the organization knows the candidate’s relative, the resumes of the external candidates are usually disregarded. Without an open review, through word-of-mouth recommendations, the choices are changed. When positions are being made for family members who are not quite prepared, the regular hiring practices generally disappear. The assessments can be subtly influenced by the fact that you know someone rather than your achievements.
Impacts and Mitigation
Family-based hiring gives some workers the confidence and feeling of stability. However, it is common that the overall team’s performance is compromised when those left out feel ignored, which stifles innovation and leads to more people leaving the company. A set of clear regulations, such as anonymous job applications and external audits, may help curb nepotism if strictly adhering to them. Regardless, lack of supervision together with social acceptance allow the habit to be practiced secretly.
At first, it might seem comfortable to give priority to family members by putting them in positions without considering their experience or training. Eventually, however, these kinds of practices lead to unfair conditions that erode the trust in hiring systems. When the issue of connections gets priority over the issue of competence, qualified people are often pushed aside. After a while, the continuous giving of advantage to insiders distorts the identification of someone’s value based on the actual contribution. Modifications should be introduced in such a way that it is possible at the same time to restore the equilibrium where merit is the determining factor. The present small steps ensure that there will be no big problems in the future.
Related Topics:
Interpersonal Relationships: Personal Space and Expectations
