The Virtues of Nepotism: Building strong organisations
Peter Prevos |
551 words | 3 minutes
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Nepotism in the workplace is considered by many to be one of the great sins of Western culture. Over the past century, Western society has been levelled by removing class distinctions and shaped to create equal opportunities for everybody, regardless of race, religion, gender. Family relationships are not supposed to play a role in any one's chances of success. The Wikipedia definition of nepotism is:
Favouritism granted to relatives or friends, without regard to their merit.
When Ian and I researched HR practices in Vietnam, we came across thought-provoking recruitment practices. From our interviews with local managers, it became clear that using family networks is an accepted recruitment source for staff.
From our data, we formed the hypothesis that recruitment in countries with a collective nature, such as Vietnam, is primarily conducted through traditional social networks, not the electronic type. This collectivism contrasts with the developed world, with a high level of individualism, where, especially in the government sector, a level playing field is created by publicly advertising positions. Companies in Hanoi use family networks as a primary recruitment pool.
Although Vietnamese practices are very much like the dreaded nepotism in the workplace, some interviewees clarified that although they use family networks as a primary recruitment source, within that pool of people, the selection is nevertheless based on merit.
The benefit of this nepotism in the workplace is a strong organisational culture. A training manager of a large company told us that they have many teams in which several generations of one family work together and that this creates strong culture bonds and a sense of common purpose within the organisation.
Nepotism in the workplace
This sense of shared purpose is considered a holy grail by most organisations in the developed, individualistic, world. Many activities are aimed at 'aligning' people with the common objectives of the organisation. But given that most businesses are a grab bag of people, working together more by change than by common purpose, this has proven to be an elusive goal.
Research in Australia has shown that people recruited through anonymous sources such as newspaper advertisements missed almost twice as many days as those hired through other sources, such as employee referrals.
[note]Breaugh, James A. (1981) Relationship between recruiting sources and employee performance, absenteeism, and work attitudes. Academy of Management Journal 24(1): 142–147.[/note]
This research underwrites the importance of using traditional social networks as a source of recruitment.
Human beings are inherently social creatures, and we like to spend our time with people we enjoy spending time with. Within that frame of reference, we are biased towards relatives. One of the primary reasons many people don't enjoy work is not because of the work itself but because of the people they are forced to socialise with.
Open recruitment processes aimed at creating a level playing field are problematic, and many organisations use abstract tools, such as personality tests, and reference checks to create the illusion that recruitment is a stoic rational process.
Next time when hiring people, look around your immediate and extended social circle and see if there is anybody you would like to work with that can potentially do the job. The moral of the story is: nepotism in the workplace is not inherently evil, as long as the final selection is based on merit.
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