Management and wellbeing practices in family-business workplaces - new paper

New research from the Family Business Research Foundation offers new insights into how family firms in Britain manage and support their staff — and how that differs from other employers.

Drawing on the UK Government's 2018–19 Management and Wellbeing Practices Survey, the study analyses around 1,700 private-sector workplaces with 5+ employees across Britain, comparing those owned and managed by a family or founder with their non-family counterparts.

Family owed and managed workplaces made up a slight majority — 55.4 per cent — of all business workplaces analysed, so they are far from a niche group. They are most common in construction (83 per cent) and manufacturing, and least common in finance (36 per cent).

The headline finding is not whether family firms support their people, but how. Family owned and managed workplaces were consistently less likely to manage through written policies and formal structures. They were less likely to have a written flexible-working policy (62 per cent versus 74 per cent), enhanced maternity pay (17 per cent versus 25 per cent), a formal bereavement policy (40 per cent versus 53 per cent), or a recognised trade union (6 per cent versus 15 per cent).

Crucially, these gaps are not simply a by-product of family firms being smaller. For several of the most important measures, the difference held when workplaces of the same size were compared directly — pointing to family ownership and management, not size alone, shaping how these businesses operate.

But less formal does not mean less supportive. Regular meetings between managers and staff were common in both groups; family-business employers more often preferred to consult staff directly (43 per cent versus 31 per cent); and everyday provisions such as short-notice time off to care for a dependant were similar across the two. The picture is one of a different balance between formal and informal practice, rather than a deficit of support.

The full working paper sets out the analysis, methodology and complete results, while the accompanying Research and Policy Briefing No. 8 summarises the key findings and their implications for practice and policy.