We're a family here: what it means at work

"We're a family here" is what a company says when it wants family-style loyalty, like staying late, working Saturdays, doing favors and feeling bad about leaving. Job hunters read it as a red flag, and 62.5% of them call it an ick.

Last updated Oct 12 2026

Around here, we're like a family.

What did they mean?

Filed under U to Z jargon.

The family line in hiring

We’re a family here in job ads

In a job ad, “we’re a family here” counts as a red flag. 62.5% of job hunters lose interest when an ad or an interviewer says “we’re like a family”. Even the job-ad buzzwords they dislike most put off far fewer people.

Job-ad finding	Figure
Where “like a family” ranks among eight application red flags	Fifth, 0.2 points behind a board or about page with no diversity on it
Job hunters put off by “winner’s mindset”	36.7%
Job hunters put off by “hustle”	36.3%

How often job ads say it

Job ads rarely put the family line in writing. You’re more likely to hear it in the interview.

Phrase, in 1.4 million US and UK job ads	How often
“Like a family”, in the UK ads	Nine times, 0.01% of them
“Fast-paced environment”, in all the ads	0.7%
“Competitive salary”, in the UK ads	3%

Why workers push back on the family line

A team, not a family

The best-known pushback comes from Netflix. Its culture deck, written by Reed Hastings and Patty McCord in August 2009, says “We’re a team, not a family”. The 2024 culture memo keeps the idea and compares Netflix to a professional sports team.

Netflix says the original deck ran to 125 pages. Other accounts count 175 slides.

You don’t fire family

Airbnb laid off 1,900 people in 2020, almost a quarter of its staff. In 2024 its CEO, Brian Chesky, said Airbnb used to call itself a family, then had to fire people, “and yeah, you don’t fire members of your family”.

What we’re a family here means day to day

What it means day to day

Day to day, family talk makes it hard to tell where the job ends. Staying late gets called loyalty, and saying no starts to feel personal. So does handing in your notice. Ask for a raise and you get the answer kids get when they ask for money: “we’ll see”. At work, that’s a promise to circle back.

When the family line comes out

The family line usually comes out when the company wants something, like a late night or your Saturday. It also turns up after a record year, when the family gets a pizza party at one slice each and a thank-you post from the CEO in fluent LinkedIn speak.

At a family business the line is literal. You find out which relative decides things by asking the wrong one first.

The rest of the list

Job-ad red-flag lists put “we’re a family” beside “rockstar”, “ninja”, “work hard, play hard” and “unlimited PTO”. Rockstar and ninja would fit better on our list of funny job titles.

Unlimited PTO is on those lists too, even though people who have it take a little more time off. That’s about 16 days a year, against 14 on a fixed allowance.

Of the job-ad phrases in our corporate jargon dictionary, the family line is the one job hunters take most personally.

Questions to ask in the interview

If an interviewer brings up the family line, ask what it means in practice.

“What happened the last time someone turned down weekend work?”
“How many people left this team in the past year, and why?”
“Is overtime paid, or does it come back as time off?”
“What does the first month look like?” The answer shows whether they expect you to hit the ground running.

An onboarding message with we’re a family here

#welcome, Monday 9:02 am
Everyone say hi to Marco, joining Customer Success today. We’re ~~a family here~~ in on Saturday, so don’t be shy. Heads up that the quarter-end push means most of us are online Saturday. The card for Gary’s birthday is at reception, $20 suggested.

Earn the offer in The Application, our job application game, and the letter signs off with “Welcome to the family”.

We're a family here in a sentence

Around here, we're like a family.
The CEO said we're a family here, Tomas, two weeks before the layoffs.
When I asked about overtime pay, Ingrid said we're a family here and families help out.
Slide two of the welcome deck says we're a family here, Ulla. Slide three is the disciplinary policy.

Questions about we're a family here

When a company says they are a family?

It's describing the loyalty it hopes for, like staying late without counting the hours. In a job ad, a stated salary, paid overtime and more than the minimum leave make the line harmless. Without them, read it as a warning sign.

What is it called when someone is hired because they are family?

Nepotism, which means using your power or influence to get good jobs or unfair advantages for your own family. At a family business, it's the one place where "we're a family here" is literally true.

What is the biggest red flag at work?

For job hunters, the biggest red flag in a job ad is offering only the minimum annual leave. It puts off 65.5% of them. Second, at 64.6%, is being pushed to like colleagues' posts on social media.

What is a work family?

A work family is a workplace, or a team inside one, described as a family. Close coworkers can feel like one. When a company uses the phrase, asking for a raise starts to feel disloyal and leaving feels like abandonment.

What does it mean when a company is family-oriented?

A family-oriented company says it has family-friendly practices: ways of working meant to let staff with children keep doing their job. That's different from "we're a family here", which asks you to treat the company itself as family.

Sources

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