Management and Wellbeing Practices in Family-business Workplaces in Britain

Family businesses make up the majority of UK firms and employ millions of people — yet how they manage and support their workforces remains surprisingly under-researched. A new working paper by Martin Kemp from the Family Business Research Foundation seeks to address this question: How do the workplaces of businesses owned and run by families differ from those of non-family firms?

The working paper draws on the UK Government's Management and Wellbeing Practices (MWP) survey to take an in-depth look at the employer practices and policies of family-owned firms across Britain. Building on the Foundation's 2013 Family Business People Capital study, the research compares family and non-family employers on areas such as flexible working, in-work support for parents, and employee voice. It also makes the case for more consistent, higher-quality data on the UK family-business sector, so that evidence can be compared reliably across national surveys.