Boomerang employees: Past employees are companies' new talent pipeline

Past employees are the new talent pipeline, and the stigma of leaving or rejoining an organisation is fading.

With attrition on a high and great resignation set to intensify this financial year, companies and human resource managers are reaching out and making an extra effort to bring back old employees who had left them earlier.

Those past employees know the work culture, know the company, most of them are performers and they will be productive immediately. HR managers and recruiters believe that it is important to destigmatize people leaving an organisation.

Of late, there is no more stigma in bringing back past employees, and re-designating them. And this is being driven by the theory that leaving does not mean betrayal, but a professional cycle.

“I have several boomerang employees – who had left us and have now joined back. People may leave for money, they will come back for culture. If people leave for culture, they won’t come back for money,” said Yuvaraj Srivastava, group chief human resource officer at MakeMyTrip, a travel tech firm. He said there is no harm in actively reaching out to them.

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“When you are taking back people, you are not driving a matrix but a message. If one is saying he or she has taken back 20-25 people in the last one year or so after they left…it’s a huge message to the industry, and to the internal people too (that people are valued),” Srivastava added.

Barnik C. Maitra, managing partner and chief executive of consulting firm Arthur D Little (India and South Asia), says that destigmatization of past employees is a net positive for the talent pool as well as the industries. Boomerang employees are a nice pool of talent to choose from, and more so at a time when industries are facing a quality talent crunch.

According to Harvard Business Review, good companies are always on the lookout for good talent.

“They also recognize that every former employee is a potential future customer, business partner, referral source — and even a potential future employee. Returning employees, also known as “boomerang employees,” are an important part of the talent pipeline. This is particularly true in times when there are talent shortages, as well as in sectors experiencing a surge in demand driving a shortfall in available talent…,” HBR wrote in a recent report.

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Nimisha Pathak, director HR at consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal almost concurred. She said her firm and her team are now planning to reach out to people who have left them earlier, maybe in the past one and half years.

“We do understand why they have left. We also understand that they may have hesitation in calling back. We are, and shall reach out to some of them,” Pathak added.

But, what about compensation? “Anyone who has gone out with a hike, will unlikely to return at a low,” said Amit Khurana, managing director of Corporate Access, a HR consulting firm.

But are firms giving a wage premium, a good hike while bringing them back?

“They will never come back for a low. People centricity is key and we believe to be fair, sensitive and meritocratic. Meritocratic means, if I am taking a talent back, who had gone for a good 20-30 percent hike, I have to honour what compensation he or she is getting. In most cases they come back after a hike over the present compensation,” said Srivastava of MakeMyTrip.

Srivastava said top performers who left, are being taken back without a question asked, because you know them and their work.

Great resignation is here to stay:

The talent war in India and elsewhere is only going to hot up in FY23 and voluntary attrition among seniors will be higher than juniors. And this will not be confined to tech or tech enabled sectors alone, but will play out on a more diverse canvas, Moneycontrol reported on April 19.

There has been a wave of resignations in India as just over one-third of respondents (38 percent) have only been at their current jobs for not more than two years, as per a fresh survey finding by global recruitment firm Michael Page.

Just 38 percent have been at their current jobs for not more than two years

At least 81 percent of the entry level personnel are looking to resign in the next six months, and this is one of the modest numbers in the employee hierarchy. While 89 percent of the managers are looking for a job change, and planning to resign, 85 percent are at executive and business operation level. Similarly, 84 percent of senior management personnel are planning to resign during the same timeframe. And at least 79 percent in the C-suite and specialist roles are planning to switch over the next two quarters, as per Michael Page.