While some companies may discourage hiring employees' relatives, the practice is not unusual in Hawai'i, where local and family ties can be not only valuable but inevitable.

The practice seems especially common in Hawai'i's hotel industry, which often seeks locally grown talent. Major hotel companies such as Outrigger Enterprises Inc., Hilton Hawaii and Starwood Hotels & Resorts not only allow for hiring relatives, but in some cases encourage family referrals.

Sisters Nora Weatherwax and Puna Ortega followed in the footsteps of their older siblings when they began working at the Outrigger Waikiki's front desk more than two decades ago. At one point, five sisters were working for Outrigger.

Ortega is now director of front office operations at the Outrigger Waikiki, while Weatherwax has become hotel manager of the Ohana Maile Sky Court and the Ohana Waikiki Malia hotels, part of the Outrigger chain. Their brother-in-law, Jim Hill, is regional director of condominiums for Outrigger's Maui and Kaua'i properties.

Weatherwax's 27-year-old daughter, Kea Parker, works at the front desk of the Ohana Waikiki West.

"It's almost like one foot in the door when you have family in the industry," said Ortega.

It's rare that Hawai'i companies will have a policy against hiring employees' relatives, said Judy Bishop, owner of Bishop & Co., which matches employers with employees.

"It's probably less than 5 percent of our clients that ever say, 'Oh, if they have a family member working here, we can't accept them,' " Bishop said. "And I think that if companies have had that as a policy in the past, they're probably more than likely to be easing up on that policy due to the low unemployment."

Bishop said such policies against hiring relatives may be stricter on the Mainland. "I think we have more of that 'ohana-style working spirit here," she said.

Marie Kumabe, co-owner of Remedy Intelligent Staffing in Honolulu, said she doesn't have statistics on hiring family members, but that she believes it's more common in the tourism industry.

"I think, because it is the largest industry in the state, that it's inevitable," said Kumabe, who also teaches human resource management at the University of Hawai'i College of Business Administration and School of Travel Industry Management. "It's just that everyone is somehow, somewhat related.

"I don't necessarily know if they go into the same field, like if a housekeeper mom is going to have a housekeeper son. But definitely, there's a positive feeling by the employees of the hotel and their children and an excitement about the industry.

"I think because of the 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, 365-day nature of it ... the hotel industry becomes a much more obvious part of family life," Kumabe said. "And also, the venue allows it to be. In other words, you can go to the Hilton when your mom was getting off work and run around the property, versus if you were going to be picking up your family in front of the bank, it's drive through, jump in and go."

Kea Parker remembers opening presents at 6 a.m. Christmas Day, before her mother went to work. She also remembers repeat hotel guests coming to their house for dinner. "I remember ... that rapport she was able to make with people that she would see once a year," Parker said. Now she gets visits from some of her mother's return guests.

But working at the same company as your parent also has its challenges.

It took about a year before people stopped calling Parker "Nora's daughter." "I definitely had to prove that I was able to do this job," she said. "But I didn't mind the challenge."

There are many examples of family members working for Outrigger — a family-run company — including those in a second generation who rise in management, said Perry Sorenson, who oversees Outrigger's human resources department.

Outrigger doesn't have any policy for or against hiring family members, but doesn't allow employees to be supervised by a family member, to avoid any appearance of favoritism, Sorenson said.

"We actually encourage people who are happy here to recommend members of their families for work or careers," Sorenson said. "If they're happy to work here and proud to work for Outrigger, we think that that's a good model for their siblings, cousins, sons or daughters. And at the same time, obviously, if they're good employees in good standing, then those relations are likely to also be very good employees. So I think it's partly because we're a family-run company and partly in our self-interest, just finding good people."

Starwood Hotels in Hawai'i also allows family members to work for the company, but tries to avoid situations in which a manager would have a relative working in his or her department.

"Because we have so many options for them, this really hasn't been a problem for us," said David Uchiyama, regional director of communications for Starwood in Hawai'i. He said the company offers employees incentives to bring others, including friends and relatives, into the company.

Julie Walker, director of human resources for the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa, said the company encourages employees to refer their friends and family. The company allows family members and others with personal relationships to work in the same department as long as there is no conflict of interest, she said.

There are pros and cons to hiring an employee's relative, said University of Hawai'i management professor David Bess.

"The obvious advantages would be that the newer employee ... probably would know more about the company than they would if they didn't have a family member working there. Sometimes, the family member can do a little extra coaching for the newer one. They can understand when each other has family issues; maybe they can jump in and help the other more readily."

One disadvantage is that "other employees can see that as a sign of favoritism," he said. "It's probably safer in many cases to have the family members in different departments."

Hilton Hawaiian Village employees Loretta Chong and her son, Wilfred Chong, say working in the same department hasn't been a problem for them.

Loretta Chong was a banquet waitress at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for about five years when a manager asked employees if they had any children who were at least 18 and could work. Wilfred Chong — who saw his mother, an aunt and cousins work in the business — started as a waiter at the resort on his 18th birthday.

"I saw the money that was coming in, so that was a little bit of influence, and it was flexible," he said. "I could work it around my school schedule."

Nearly 24 years later, Wilfred is now a banquet captain at the resort and his mother's supervisor.

"It works out very well," he said. "We've always had a great relationship."

Loretta agreed. "I'm proud of him, to say that he has started as a waiter and then they asked him to be a banquet captain," she said. "But as far as being my boss, he treats me the same as everybody."

Family ties also haven't gotten in the way for Almar Napuelua, a Sheraton Waikiki Hotel and Royal Hawaiian hotel telephone operator, and her son, Lowell Napuelua, a security officer for the same two hotels.

Almar, who has worked at the hotel for 34 years, is a member of the hotel workers union, while Lowell is in management. They work in different departments, so they don't see each other until Lowell takes Almar home.

"We have so many departments over here, it doesn't mean that family has to work together with family," said Lowell, who has been working for the company for 27 years. "We've got husbands, wives, their kids. ... The owners have always been on the side of families. They really encourage it."

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.