Family business and younger brother

LegacyUser

Hi,
My father started a business almost 30 years ago and its grown to become fairly successful. It currently employs 50 people and even in these times its still growing. Im the eldest son and even as a young child, prehaps 12 or 13 I worked there on all my weekends, days off school and all through the summer holidays. I then decided that when I finsihed school Id go to college to study in the field and to become qualified (which my Dad never managed, although he would be considered an expert). When I completed my qualifications, I worked in Europe and then went to Australia to get some outside the family business experience.

When I came home my dad asked me to work for the company, but on night shifts and to supervise for him, which I did for almost 3 years. When I met my current wife and we bought our first home I moved onto days and slowly started taking on more and more responsibility to the point that my Dad started to refer to the owners as 3 people (himself, my mother and me although I was never given shares).

As 2008 and recession became more apparent, I recognised that I didnt have the natural business acumen of my father so I started on a number of courses which as I progressed through gave me more confidence to see what I could achieve on an acedemic front. To date Ive complted a diploma, a degree in business and next September Im starting an MBA, all of which I hope will help me run the business as well if not better than my father did. In total Iv spent almost 20 years of my life in the company and in recent years, due to my growing business mind the company has seen a 200% increase in TO and a 6 digit increase in net profits. I work about 70 hrs per week and sometimes go to work twice a day (its a 24hr operation) to touch base with the night crews.

My problem is that I have a younger brother in his mid 20's who has been spoilt all his life. He dropped out of school in 4th year, spent most of his late teenage years stoned, has been before the courts on drugs charges and disorderly conduct and has never really worked a day in his life. My dad started him in the company last year as a driver, but that role has since been made redundent and he now has a job working in the plant. But as I get to see him now every day, I see that he just lazes around the place, goes off every 15mins for a smoke, wont work more than 8hrs and has a pretty rotten attitude towards the other people in the business.

The other day I asked him to change his working hours from a 6am start to a 9am start and he basically told me to f*ck off Im not his boss. Now, Im the most senior manager in the business and in 99% of the time what I ask for is done so this reaction didnt go down well with me and a massive bust up ensued...to the point where he told me he was going to stab me!!!

How do I handle this? I have also just found out from another employee that my brother is going around telling people that he going to get 20% of the company and his plan is to sell it back to me...
How should I appraoch this with my parents? He is the youngest and he has always been spoilt and defended by my mother.

Eoin

I'm wondering if this might be better suited to the personal issues forum?

Do you have a plan for how you'd deal with any other employee that acted like that?

LegacyUser

Hi Eoin...not sure if Ive made a mistake because Im not that used to the forums but Ive posted the same question on the PI board?

I put together a pretty detailed disciplinary procedure that is added to all employee contratcs last year. basically the standard stuff of what amounts to gross misconduct...which if I applied to this situation would result in an immediate suspension...but as with most family-work situations theres the family disharmoney issue to think about if I did something about it.

Apologies if Iv posted the same issue twice.

rgds
Bill

Mrs OBumble

We don't usually like cross posts, so I'll close this thread and you can see how the one in PI goes. PM if that doesn't help, and we can open it again.