On Hiring Family Members - Is It Fair?
And the DEI / MEI Debate
Welcome back to Catholic Founders, The #1 Publication For Catholic Founders & Business Owners. We’re on a mission to support and educate Catholic Business Owners worldwide so that together, we can intentionally influence the world toward God.
I need 30 seconds of your time.
Bringing the world back to God (fulfilling our mission) requires your help.
Share this publication with one Catholic Business Owner that you know.
That’s all; we trust the Holy Spirit to take it from there. 🕊️
Housekeeping:
We are looking to start a group chat for readers of CF - but we need to hear from you - which platform would you prefer?
Signal | WhatsApp | Slack | Discord | Other?
Let us know by replying to this Email or DM on Substack.
My day job is as a recruitment consultant. In this space, the topic of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) has been hot for the past few years. However, in recent times, people have started to question the topic more.
As an avid podcast listener and a recruiter, I had to check out this episode of HR Heretics about the topic.
They brought up an example of a CEO giving a family member a job or an internship and called it corruption. It got me wondering how Catholics should approach this stuff.
However, before we can answer how and who to hire, you first need to have a clear answer to the question: What is the Purpose of this business? In other words, your Why.
There is a popular series of books by Simon Sinek on the topic of “Why.” Check them out because they are a good primer when starting a business. His (secular) take is that we need to start not with what or how we do what we do as businesses but rather WHY we do what we do. I believe this applies to Catholics, who should have a deeper sense of purpose when building businesses than anyone else. If you don’t have that sense of purpose, perhaps you’re building a business for the wrong reasons.
Categories:
To simplify things, let’s break them down into categories.
Today, there are two major types of business.
Profit-first: in business to make money, and that’s it
Mission-first: some stated purpose they are pursuing (often to make the world better in some way)
In most cases, both types of businesses are likely to have outside funding and, therefore, need to put profit ahead of individuals because of the pressure and responsibility to their investors. If you don’t, you’ll either be ‘sacrificing shareholder value’ or going out of business and thus no longer able to accomplish your mission in the first place.
In both cases, the dignity of man and his need to work is supplanted by the other end goal.
Here’s the thing: despite not being common categories, I believe there are two other categories—and these are the categories Catholic Founders should focus on.
Family-first: a business that exists to provide employment and finances for the needs of the family (immediate and extended)
God-first: a business created to advance the kingdom of God (and to put full trust in the Lord — even if this eventually means shutting down)
The latter has been called an ecclesiastical venture in times past. We will eventually write about this in detail, but since it might be foreign to many, here is a brief explanation.
A God first, or ecclesiastical venture, is a business venture set up with the express intention of advancing the kingdom of God.
The advancement of the kingdom of God doesn’t mean going out to evangelize on the streets; it doesn’t even mean being an explicitly ‘Catholic’ business. It simply means that the leadership focuses on allowing their work, and that of all the employees, to be a part of the sanctification and edification of their life on earth. In following this line of thought, we also aim to care for our customers (and suppliers) in a fundamentally Christ-centered way (treat them as we’d treat Christ).
All of this would lead to conversions through the help of the Holy Spirit. That is what a God-first business fundamentally looks like.
You might now be wondering, which is right for me? Let’s get into it.
If you find this content valuable, what are you waiting for? Become a paid supporter of our work today by clicking “Upgrade to Paid” — It gives you some skin in the game to keep you coming back for more, so together, we can upgrade how you run your business.
Which Category Is Right For Catholics?
The profit-first option is a no-go in my book. If that’s your focus, you will inevitably have to choose the good of the investor over the good of the worker at some point. This goes contrary to the Church’s teachings on the primacy given to the dignity of the worker. (Read about it in Laborem Exercens)
The mission-first option is acceptable, but ensure alignment with your investors so you are never pressured to do something that would directly or indirectly hurt your employees.
The family-first option is where things start to get interesting. With this, you have at the core of your purpose, alignment with your vocation. You’re providing employment for yourself and many of your family members. Not to mention the families of any of your employees. I like this option so much because we have families, making it hard to forget the needs of our employees’ families.
Finally, we come to the God-first option. It goes without saying this is of course acceptable for us to pursue. The key point here is that you’re doing this as a means to help sanctify your earthly life. The business can do pretty much anything so long as it doesn’t directly oppose our faith or hurt people.
So, now that we’ve understood these types let’s resume the question of hiring from the lens of either the family-first option or the God-first option. They are nearly the same.
Hiring Family vs Outsiders?
We’ve determined that your business is run for the benefit of your family or the benefit of the Kingdom of God. Now, what do you do if faced with a chance to hire an outsider (a stranger) versus a family member? Remember, this family member might be less technically capable than the outsider.
We’ve gone down a winding path to arrive to this point—but truthfully, it’s simple. The answer is it depends.
You need to pray and deliberate about each hire. If your family member is already doing well somewhere else and has a good job, but this stranger has been out of work for months and has a family to care for, I think it’s pretty obvious how you should hire.
There may be instances where the business, in order to grow, needs to hire someone with a particular skill set. Not hiring that outsider could be detrimental to the business and thus detrimental to the existing family members employed by the business.
If you’re on the God-first option, listening to The Spirit is even more critical because sometimes hiring an outsider may make no sense but it just feels like you’re called to. The reasons may be concealed from you, but sometimes it’s just what God wants.
We see this again. With everything in business, we need to deal with each situation individually, in the same way God deals with each of us individually. Each path has pros and cons, but we pray, seek God’s guidance, and view the decision through the lens of our company’s purpose.
If things are unclear, have someone to speak with as an advisor. Perhaps you need a priest’s opinion due to the gravity of the situation. Another Catholic business owner can often serve as a sounding board (as you read above, we are working on setting up a group chat for our readers).
In Summary: when it comes to big decisions in your business, especially with hiring, ask The Spirit to guide you (as with most things in business).
See ya next time! 👋
Asks 🙏
👉 Pray for our readers! — Please pray for the readers and Catholic Business owners around the world. I am aware of a few currently who are struggling to find more work to provide for their families. Please ask Saint Joseph to bring them some work. Thank you!
👉 Help us grow! — Share this with another Catholic Entrepreneur so together we can reshape the culture.
👉 Who should we interview? — (Comment or DM)