Nepotism Logic

Why does an employer hire family or close friends? There could many reasons why, but I think one main reason is it's easier to hire someone you know than you don't know. If you hire a complete stranger you don't know if (s)he will show up on time (or at all), or if you (s)he is competent or not, or even if (s)he will come to work with a gun shoot you and or other workers if you fire him/her. But a close friend or a family member you know more about. You know the personality and possible work habits of the friend or family member better. Of course, that won't guarantee you picking a perfect worker--but there are no guarantees in picking a worker.

Of course, you can do background checks on the potential employee and even call his references, but even that may or may not give you helpful info. If the person has no criminal record, doing a background check may not yield any useful results. If you call references all former employers can say is basically if the person has worked for them or not. They would not say anything about job performance especially if its bad because of the fear of being sued by the former employee. Doing in depth investigations of potential employees cost time and money, and employers usually don't want to invest in either when choosing an employee.

Let's face it, it's who you know than what you know when comes to getting a job. In other words connections. What you know does count especially when you get the job, but if you have connections it makes it easier. Is having connections wrong? No, not really. As long as the new hire can do the job is what is important. I think nepotism gets a bad rap is where the new hire is slacking on the job or if (s)he gets better treatment than the other employees. The new employee should be treated the same as all the rest of the employees. (S)he should not be treated worse off. Some employers treat the friend or relative on the job worse just to show no favorable treatment. That is not fair to the employee.

I am not saying nepotism is good or bad. I am just trying to understand the psychology of it. If nepotism is bad then JFK hiring his brother Bobby for US Attorney General was a bad decision. I don't recall anyone back then saying that was a bad decision. The only thing nepotism could hurt is the relationship between the boss and his/her friend or relative, especially if they interact a lot of each other outside of work (like best friends or a husband and wife, for example). That could put a strain on the relationship.