As the NBA Season gets ready to tip off, Cleveland is certainly
ready. The return of LeBron James to the Cleveland Cavaliers has riveted the
sports world and reinvigorated Cleveland. But for employers, this “going home”
phenomenon has prompted conversations of boomerang employees – those employees
who leave an employer only to return sometime later. This article looks at this
relatively-new concept, and outlines what employers should consider before
rehiring a boomerang employee.
When the question used to come up of whether to rehire a
former employee, many employers aligned with one school of thinking: “If you
thought the grass was greener on the other side, you can stay there.”
This particular mindset, however, has increasingly
becoming the minority view. This attitude shift is forcing recruiters and
employers to rethink not only their recruiting strategies, but also their
hiring and exit strategies.
This attitude shift seems spurred by four major factors:
(1) generational disparity; (2) the economy; (3) changing/expanding gender
roles; and (4) skill specialization.
1. Generational
disparity
Employees born during the veterans (born before 1946) and
the baby boomer (born 1946 – 1964) eras would have been far more hesitant to
leave one job for another out of fear of being considered disloyal or a job
hopper. This is no longer the case. Now the percentage of employees who stay
with one employer throughout the course of their careers is extremely low. This
became first noticeable for workers in Gen X (born 1964 – mid-80’s). In fact,
it seems that when Gen Xers entered the workforce, they abandoned the idea of
life-long employment, along with 8-track tapes. This change in ideology did not
stop with Gen X, and continued to Gen Y, also known as the millennials (born
mid-80’s to early 2000’s). While many Gen Xers turned to job hopping as a means
of survival, millennials took it further, and turned to job hopping as a means
of career advancement.
2. The economy
As alluded to earlier, this attitude shift is not based
solely on the workers’ personalities – those pesky Gen Xers did not let their
listening to too much Nirvana rot their brains – economic factors played a key
role.
Baby boomers have been slower to leave the work force due
to financial constraints, meaning there have been fewer advancement
opportunities for younger workers to step into. Job hopping is no longer a sign
of poor character; it is a career plan, and many Gen Xers and millennials
subscribe to the line of thinking: “The only way to move up is to move on.”
In addition, most private sector employers long ago
phased out defined benefit pension plans that rewarded long-term service and
replaced them with far more portable 401(k) plans and the like. With that, a
major incentive for long-term employment with just one employer dried up.
Generations X and Y also got to experience the recession
that started in 2008. Many workers lost their jobs, lost their homes, and
basically saw their lives turn upside down. But one thing these groups had that
the baby boomers had far less of, student loan debt, and lots of it. The
recession changed the way these groups look at things. These groups were taught
growing up that if you went to college, you could get a good job with financial
security. The recession proved this to be untrue for many new job seekers. For
many, higher education is no longer the golden ticket to a good job; now, it
has to be viewed as an investment that comes with potential risks just like
other more traditional investments, like the stock market and real estate.
3. Changing and
expanding gender roles
This ties into the next factor, changing/expanding gender
roles. More women than ever are in the workforce, more families are
dual-income, and more women are breadwinners. These changing/expanding gender
roles have caused people to leave employment for one reason or another. They
move for their spouse’s job, for school, to have children, etc. Some employees
also change jobs to have a better work-life balance. This leads some employees
to opt for project-type work, rather than a steady 9-5 job. In other words,
life happens, and the flexible employers win out.
4. Skill
specialization
The last factor is skill specialization. The professional
workforce has changed, and the demand for employees with specialized skills is
high. As such, employees with the covetable skills are constantly offered
opportunities. Some employees leave, not because they are disloyal, but because
they can and because, these days, money and job flexibility talk. Some
employees stay, not because they are loyal, but because they have to. This is
just as much the employer’s fault though as it is the employee’s, because
employers need to learn how to retain top talent through more flexibility,
creative fringe benefit options like onsite day care, etc.
The combination of generational disparity, the economy,
changing/expanding gender roles and skill specialization have made life-long
employment a thing of the past. The present and the future is the free-agent
generation. The good news is that employers seem to be getting on board. To
many, leaving a company is no longer viewed as a betrayal, and many companies
have changed their thinking about boomerang employees. They no longer see them
as “ex-employees,” or “traitors”; rather, they consider them “alumni,” and
continue to maintain their connections to these former employees.
Advantages
There is no denying that there is value in hiring a
boomerang employee. The cost of losing an employee and hiring and training a
new one is expensive. Studies suggest that hiring a boomerang employee has one
of the highest returns on a recruiting investment – 1/3 to 2/3 the cost of
hiring a newbie employee. It often makes sense then for an employer to rehire a
former worker to offset some of these costs.
Social media sites like LinkedIn make it even easier to
keep track of former employees, and it is typically less expensive to rehire
them directly and bypass the search and recruitment process altogether. With
these employees, employers know what they are getting.
Another advantage with boomerang employees is saving time
on training and ramp-up time, and they tend to acclimate more easily as they
re-enter the workforce because they understand the organization’s work
structure and culture. They may also know most of the key players (if the
company has not had a lot of turnover).
Another value is boomerang employees have gotten their
chance to see if the grass really is greener on the other side. Returning employees,
who have gotten to see firsthand that it is not, are many times better workers,
more committed, more loyal, and better brand ambassadors.
Risks
But it is not all positive. There are risks involved in
hiring a boomerang employee because not all boomerang employees are created
equal, and it is not always the “one that got away” that tries to return. Here
are five considerations when deciding whether to return a boomerang employee:
1. Circumstances
of the departure
The number one consideration is to determinate why and
how the employee left. Not surprising, employees who left voluntarily on good
terms are best suited to return to work, as opposed to those employees who left
involuntarily or on bad terms. Did the employee leave because of dissatisfaction
with the company, or because of some personal reason, like spouse job
relocation, pregnancy, or some other reason?
If an employee left because of lack of growth
opportunities, because the employee thought he was underpaid, or because he had
a less-than-stellar relationship with a supervisor or co-workers, unless the
company has undergone a significant change since the employee left, it is
unlikely that the employee’s issues with the company will have resolved or
stabilized in a manner that will result in long term, sustained employment.
In addition, if the employee was fired or forced out,
they should not be considered for rehire, unless of course the person or
persons who forced them out were discovered to be the source of the problem.
Similarly, if an employee left involuntarily because of poor performance, the
employer would generally be foolish to rehire them.
Some employers also refuse to rehire an employee who left
to go to a competitor. There may be non-compete issues to consider in this type
of situation. It could be become a very expensive rehire decision is if it
results in litigation with the employee’s most recent employer.
These considerations are examples of why it is important
for employers to conduct and document exit interviews when employees resign or
are terminated. An exit interview gives the employee an opportunity to provide
the employer constructive feedback about their job, co-workers, supervisors,
and the company overall. If the employer documents what the individual said during
the exit interview and retains that information, it can be an invaluable
resource to refer back to when considering that individual for rehire a few
years down the road.
2. Length of
departure
Another consideration is how long the employee was away from
the workforce. Employees gone for short periods take less time to train and
re-acclimate to the organization, its culture, and the demands of the job given
the current organizational climate. Bottom line, the shorter the leave, the
more money the company can save.
3. Past
performance
This largely follows Number 1. One reason to keep good
employment records is to determine if an employee should be considered for
rehire. Of course no employer wants to rehire a poor performer or a chronic
attendance problem. But for large employers or employers with high turnover,
there may be little or no institutional knowledge of an employee’s prior
employment tenure. This means, if details about the employee’s prior employment
are not in the records, the employer may not discover it.
This is also why it is important for employers to ask on
the employment application if the applicant has ever worked for the company
before and, if so, why the employee left. If the employee was terminated, it
should come out at this time. If the employee lies and is hired, once the lie
is discovered, the employee could perhaps be terminated for lying during the
application process.
4. Performance at
current employer and reason for returning
During their absence, there is a good chance that
boomerang employees have learned new skills, expanded their network, and had
other successes. It is important to have a candid conversation with the
employee and find out exactly why the employee wants to return. There are right
reasons to return and there are wrong ones. If an employee wants to return
because the employee misses former colleagues, it is not a good reason. If the
employee wants to return because the employee has not had success in subsequent
employment, it is not a good reason.
The best case is when an employee wants to return because
the employee has had time to learn, grow, develop new skills, and believes the
former employer can take advantage of the employee’s newly-expanded skillset
and network.
5. Needs of the
Company
No matter how great a former employee might have been or
currently is, ultimately the decision to rehire comes down to whether the
company needs the skills of the employee, the money to hire the employee, and
has a job open for the employee.
In addition, hiring a boomerang can be political, and the
re-integration of a boomerang precarious. The players may have changed since
the employee left and interpersonal relationships may have changed too.
Dynamics may also prove tense if the boomerang leapfrogged over an incumbent
employee, who might feel slighted by not getting the job.
Source: Employee
Benefit News
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