Recruiting and retaining bright young executives to assume leadership roles in family businesses has been a continuing dilemma in many maturing family enterprises. Several steps can be taken to ensure successful employment experiences for nonfamily employees, whether their role is to fill gaps between the founding generation and the younger generation, or to fill a specialized need that family members cannot. Although the categories below are not all-inclusive, they are key to making nonfamily employees feel comfortable with the company.

Many family businesses try to balance the need to control wages with the need to pay experienced people in key positions. Other than wages, nothing affects employees as much as benefits. The trend in employee benefits budgeting is similar to budgeting in other areas focusing on defraying or increas-ing costs to employees. One way to do this without cutting employee coverage is to pro-vide a menu of benefits and allow employees to pick and choose. A Section 125 cafeteria plan allows employees to pay for their costs with pre-tax dollars. But you must be careful in this area.