Discussion about a family business
By Alvin Jenn
@Acefun (1220)
Malaysia
February 21, 2019 8:22pm CST
I foresee a problem and would like to get some advise from your experience. Perhaps, you have been in the same situation before or get to know the situation before from others.
The story is like this:
Person A (owner) is a sole proprietor business in car air-cond servicing and sell some car care products for more than 20 years.
Currently the owner is not feeling well and may have bad thing. The owner having 5 workers. Two of them are his wifi and one of his son. Business is still considered okay but at time it is quite (low sales of the day). The other workers are not helpful when they get busy and the shop always have their friends coming to chit chat with them for almost half day and not for bring business in. Sometimes they will insult the family members (owner, wife and son) since they know how things works and capable to do the job.
His wifi has limited knowledge on selling product (such as what to do in servicing air-cond and able to sell some of the car parts for local car). His son knowledge on the business is limited as he is doing the account. There are stock went missing and some bad debts. Some credit customers are paying slow. The shop is owned by the owner.
In this situation, what would you advise the owner, wife and the son?
4 people like this
6 responses
@Acefun (1220)
• Malaysia
22 Feb 19
The business need to pay compensation to those workers being laid off.
However, hiring a new person is difficult as they may not have the experience to service the car or sell the correct product to customers since some cars are using different spare part and products.
1 person likes this
@Acefun (1220)
• Malaysia
26 Feb 19
@Shavkat
Some of the heavy duty works like servicing different brand of car require some skills and no one is willing to teach in proper way. Sometimes, car returned with more serious or other problems thus someone need to know how to identify the problem and get the correct spare parts to fix it.
1 person likes this
@Dextoi (1845)
• Philippines
22 Feb 19
@Acefun I guess they should have a history of records that they can compare their peak sales and the lowest. They should have an idea of what happened or what caused the loss of profit. From there, I think they can come up with an idea how to increase their sales... :)
1 person likes this
@Acefun (1220)
• Malaysia
22 Feb 19
oh, that is a typing error. I have edited it. Thanks for the remainder.
It is a complex situation for me and I agree with you.
Do you have any opinion on that?
@hereandthere (45651)
• Philippines
22 Feb 19
the husband/father should have oriented his wife and son on the business, but it's really hard to learn if they're not really interested in it.
how long has this problem been going on? has it been going on even when the father/husband was still in charge? or only when he got seriously ill and his wife and son took over?
i would agree with shavkat about firing the workers one at a time, but it's risky, too. if you fire one, the others might get even more rebellious and do even more damage to the business.
for now, they just have to monitor their people more closely, while looking for new and ethical people to hire.
2 people like this
@hereandthere (45651)
• Philippines
23 Feb 19
@Acefun then they can choose to close the business or sell the business or sell the commercial space if it's that superproblematic/stressful for them.
1 person likes this
@Acefun (1220)
• Malaysia
26 Feb 19
@hereandthere
The problem is that the owner is unwilling to let go the business since it has operated for about 35 years. By looking on the account it is showing profit but the actual earning is unknown as they are other entertainment to get the job from government is not recorded into the account.
1 person likes this
@Acefun (1220)
• Malaysia
22 Feb 19
The problem happened long time ago. Her wifi joined the business after retired from her original career. His son joined the business after graduated from university and worked for a while at other company doing account and thus he continue doing what he knows in his father business, Since knowledge sharing is not practice thus his son have been tried but failed to know all the knowledge required to service the car or sell products to customers but only basic product selling and manage customers order to the workers.
Firing workers is a cost to the business and hiring new workers may bot capable to do the job required properly and may have the same problem too.
1 person likes this
@janethwayne (5193)
• Philippines
22 Feb 19
When it comes to business,the perfect person must be the one who will be an in charge and not those who can make it flop.
2 people like this
@Acefun (1220)
• Malaysia
22 Feb 19
The person in charge is the owner himself but he has critical illness that may prevent him to survive longer. Thus, his nearest family members that work with him is his wifi and his son. But they are not capable to handle the business themself like the owner.
Knowledge sharing is not practice in here as the workers are afraid that someone is smarter than themself.
@WiseGhots (14607)
•
22 Feb 19
Well... I think family business it's quite complicated. I wouldn't like to have one. 
I don't know how to answer your question in a proper way. 
I don't know how to answer your question in a proper way. 2 people like this
@WiseGhots (14607)
•
22 Feb 19
@Acefun So, I guess regardless of whether it's a relative or not... The rule holds true for everyone.
1 person likes this
@Acefun (1220)
• Malaysia
26 Feb 19
@WiseGhots
I agree with you that family business is a bit complex.
The owner is disappointing to let go the business since it has operated for about 35 years.
1 person likes this
