Quitting your job? You may be banned from rejoining

A senior executive at a manufacturing firm quit his job for better pay in 2017. When things were not working well at his present organisation (also in the same field), he decided to contact his past company's human resources (HR) manager who was a friend. Came the curt reply, "We do not hire former employees any more."

On one hand, while skilled workers are in short supply, several corporates are now taking a stand to not rehire ex-employees.

Though these companies do not publicly state this policy, employees are usually told at the time of resignation that he/she will never be eligible for a re-appointment.

This is not applicable to staff who are retrenched due to financial constraints at an entity, but only for employees who quit to join another company or pursue higher education.

P Raveendran, a public sector bank employee quit his job to pursue management education. When he came back after a few years to the same bank, Raveendran was told that he will neither be eligible for re-employment in the same firm nor any group entity.

Globally, most companies have a cooling-off period of two to five years after which a past employee is free to join back in case of relevant opportunities.

However, HR experts said that this is a scare tactic being used by Indian corporates to dissuade employees from leaving. Especially if it is a large employer who is worried about attrition, this is almost like a threat tool used more often.

As an extension, a number of companies are taking an additional step to ban anyone who merely rejects a job offer from the entity. While the reason for not accepting an employment offer could be salary, job role or even personal issues like health, none of it is taken into consideration.

The fact is that there are multiple reasons why an employee quits ranging from inadequate pay, lack of career progression and bad bosses to toxic work environments. It is imperative that companies try to use exit interviews to do some introspection on how they could be a better organisation from an HR perspective.

Threats to ban outgoing staff from future job opportunities in the company will not work on all employees. A worker who has decided to quit may not be held back because of such tactics. In fact, through this corporates are only burning down a possible bridge to get a potential quality hire in the future.