I would be interested to hear other founders' first-hand experience with this.
In my experience, hiring my younger cousin for occasional work during school/uni breaks has been great, but involving close friends looking for work has been disastrous 3 out of 3 times.
My parents worked with my grand parents before taking over the business and I have occasionally worked with them through the years. You don’t really hire family members. They join you in the family business. It’s a different dynamic but I t doesn’t really cause issue because the family business has always been a part of our family life. The frontier between personal life and work is very blurry but that’s nothing unusual for SME owners.
There's a huge difference between bringing your children into the family business (presumably also preparing them to inherit it) and employing your sister to work for you at your business.
In my parents business it has been a disaster 100/100 times. All friendships all family relations have been completely destroyed by them trying to run a business together. I know it's just an anecdote, but yeah, I'd be careful.
In my experience, hiring my younger cousin for occasional work during school/uni breaks has been great, but involving close friends looking for work has been disastrous 3 out of 3 times.