The Toxic Effects of Branding Your Workplace a “Family”

It is toxic, ive been workong in such company and it was just shit (probably for every introvert).<p>The <i>family</i> sales people were getting low base wages and not great comissions. Programmers (like me) were good.<p>The points <i>family</i> oriented programmers were given more time and chances. Lets skip that those devs had really low skills (apart of php and js).<p>I think its as well just disgusting to ppl who dont have family. it tries to give this false idea of security, but just try to have different opinion than &quot;familly&quot; and you&#x27;re out of favours.<p>In shortcut i believe its very manipulative way to pay lower wages and artificially increase motivation.<p>At work im working, not looking for family or friends.<p>People lile to belong to a group (natural) and the idea of &quot;family&quot; company is just abusing that rule.<p>So next time you hear on interview &quot;we&#x27;re like familly in here&quot; then simply run, run, run. Unless of course you consciously choose yo validate your needs with this fake bs.

&gt;<i>&quot;Relationships between employees and employers are temporary in nature, and at some point, have to come to an end. So to liken the relationship to a family creates an allusion that the bond will last indefinitely.&quot;</i><p>Here in Germany a lot of the time this isn&#x27;t a metaphor, a lot of business is literally multigenerational family owned and operated. (i.e. the so called <i>Mittelstand</i>).<p>In these firms people generally start as apprentices, are often employed for life and nowadays sometimes even take over the business given our demographics.<p>So I think it&#x27;s valuable to make a distinction between some corporate branding and the actual thing, which is very much real, and in my opinion a great way to work. I would always take a real family culture over contractual and legalistic work environment.<p>I also think the articles questioning of familial loyalty as a value is very emblematic of this sterile management mindset. There&#x27;s nothing wrong with being a partisan for your own company, all startups essentially work this way. A lot of early game studios in particular wouldn&#x27;t have been possible without people being fiercely passionate and invested in what they do in slightly crazy ways.

Finally, finally, the insanity is being addressed. And businesses should stop using &quot;love&quot;...employees don&#x27;t love meetings, &quot;mondays&quot;, standups, staff birthday parties, offsites which steal away real family time, etc.

Can we dial back the usage of the toxic in this context? It feels overused and hyperbolic, given the context.<p>Perhaps instead a word like “harmful” or “undexpected” or “unwanted”?

There is a reason to call it workplace. Its meant for professionalism. Families expect cohesion without guarantees, put down as T&amp;C. We make sacrifices selflessly or put in our energy without expectations for people we call our own. The organization structures are different. Families are born out of blood relationship and emotional bonding. Office organization always evolves - people come and go, often minus hard feelings &amp; get promoted also. Families are organic without changes - I can&#x27;t expect to become a granddad from being a dad, by doing some exemplary act.<p>As a matter of rule, I don&#x27;t add my workplace people on social media. There has to be some insularity for long term sanity. Work cannot replace family, and family shouldn&#x27;t encroach work time. Division of time &amp; mental space is as important as division of labor.

&gt; Numerous examples and research show that overly loyal people are more likely to participate in unethical acts to keep their jobs and are also more likely to be exploited by their employer.<p>This is presumably why companies would wish to imitate organized crime families.

I would just assume that someone who calls their coworkers family are simply part of an organized crime group