Rehiring Employee
Rehiring Employee
(OP)
A good employee has left for the lush green grass on the other side of the hill, and found that it was only astroturf.
The individual now sees the error in their move and asks for their old job back.
Good employees are hard to find and we could certainly use this one, so what do we do?
Does your Company have a rehire policy?
What are the pros and cons of rehiring a well qualified employee?
What are your experiences, from the management and from the employee side?
Thank you for your feedback.
The individual now sees the error in their move and asks for their old job back.
Good employees are hard to find and we could certainly use this one, so what do we do?
Does your Company have a rehire policy?
What are the pros and cons of rehiring a well qualified employee?
What are your experiences, from the management and from the employee side?
Thank you for your feedback.





RE: Rehiring Employee
I'd think the biggest concern is, they've left for greener grass once, are they likely to do it again in a relatively short timescale.
Pros would obviously be that they have experience of not just the field but specifically your company so should be productive fro day one.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Rehiring Employee
RE: Rehiring Employee
RE: Rehiring Employee
Make sure there is agreeemnt, or he'll be out the door again.
RE: Rehiring Employee
How long were they gone? If they were gone a long time, your company may have moved forward, and the rehire will not be the fit you think they could be. If they have only been gone a short time, the transition should be easy.
Are you in a supervisory position over the potential rehire? What are your thoughts about the rehire? You seem to indicate the rehire was a good employee. What makes them "good"? Are they truly, or is your department just settling for good enough?
Is your company in a niche market? Perhaps his skill set is too specialized, and the former employee feels ill-equipped to face life in a new industry. As Greenone states, get the details in writing, but this would be advice I'd give more to the rehire than to HR.
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: Rehiring Employee
I've known several such instances and in one case the guy returned to his old position with all his benefits etc inplace as if he had never left.
This re-hire also saves you money spent on recruiting and the productivity issues with any replacement learning his job and establishing his place.
BUT: why did he leave? If the reasons he left are not addressed, he will be off again when he finds another job better to his liking. This needs action.
Hm... didn't we cover this in another thread somewhere?
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Rehiring Employee
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Rehiring Employee
We have experienced situations where, on rehire, employees have developed the attitude that they are special because they left, and then were accepted back. The ego kicks in and that has caused friction with other employees. As a result of that we decided a few years ago that once you leave, you are gone for good.
I understand that sometimes this can be like biting your nose to spite your face, but people can get pretty dumb when their ego controls their actions.
Have you found similar problems or do you think our situation is out of the ordinary?
RE: Rehiring Employee
Regards,
RE: Rehiring Employee
My personal opinion is that someone leaving, should not be returning in the short term (say up to 2 years). Also should they want to return after a longer period, make sure that the reasons he/she left have been resolved and discussed.
Solidworks 2006/DBWorks 2006 user
RE: Rehiring Employee
RE: Rehiring Employee
RE: Rehiring Employee
Might as well face it that those days are loooong gone. There just is not the same amount of trust that existed before. Now we should have contracts to protect our rights, creating the "us vs them" environment.
I certainly don't like it but, I guess, I have to deal with it.
Bottom line, I suppose, is that managers must hire who they need and only for what they need. If tomorrow things don't look as good as they do today we must dump our human inventory, as there are no emotional ties. Bring them back, use them, and spit them back out.
Every man/woman for themselves!
RE: Rehiring Employee
I've seen too many employers hire new guys with skillset X at dollar amount Y. After several years on the payroll, the guy now has skillset X+5 but has received pay increase Y+1.
He goes to Company B and shows them skillset X+5 and they give him Y+5 dollars.
What really stirs the pot is when guy with skillset X+5 and dollars Y+1 sees HIS company hire new guy off the street with skillset X+4 and dollars Y+4...
I fought that mentality for years.
old field guy
RE: Rehiring Employee
RE: Rehiring Employee
- you know the person better than any other canditate
- the person knows the organisation
- the person knows the procedures
- the person knows the job
- the person knows the external contacts
- the person will NEVER lose face even further and leave the company a second time!!
Of course I am assuming he left the first time without your company having pushed him to.
RE: Rehiring Employee
Companies often have to let people go. Why can't an employee leave?
I have no worries about hiring someone who has left - assuming of course you want them back.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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RE: Rehiring Employee
RE: Rehiring Employee
1.) Why, specifically, did the employee leave? Was it to obtain a higher salary, better working conditions, more interesting work, etc.?
2.) If you choose to hire them back, will you need to directly address the reason why they left to prvent them from leaving again? Or will the experience with the other firm be sufficient motivation for them to stick around?
3.) Does hiring this individual back violate your company policies?
I have seen examples where employees leave for various reasons and then return. Sometimes after they return they stay for the balance of their careers. But somewtimes they are asked to leave shortly after their return. It all depends on their ability and character, whether or not your company and the offered position are right for them at this stage in their career, and the motivation of each party.
Maui
RE: Rehiring Employee
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Rehiring Employee
-dsg
RE: Rehiring Employee
I think the risk of a newbie not working out or working out but leaving in a short time is just as big a risk as anything you risk hiring the old guy back. In the end, Widla, you know more about the situation than any of us arm chair managers, go with your gut.
RE: Rehiring Employee
First the re-hire is way out the cheapest option even if you find out it is about the money and pay him more.
You can take him back as if he never left.
The advantages are that HR protect their budget and their turnover ratio.
If you have to hire a replacement they need to spend on advertising and then they pay an agency to do their work for them. Plus they will probably have to pay a living wage to get a newbie anyway and he isn't going to be worth anything for 6 months.
And at the end? the newbie is as likely to move on as anyone else.
So with the rehire you may have to pay him more and re-instate his seniority etc else you just are making sure he is straight back on the job hunt and all you bought yourself is a few weeks or months.
If you do significantly increase his rewards did you buy anything? Well, perhaps a couple of years.
But if you can't keep people you pay well, how do you expect to keep people you don't pay well?
The only downside would be if he teaches the others on subsistence level incomes how to work the trick.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Rehiring Employee
The main concern we have is with the message to the remaining employees. The message can be that it is OK to try something else and if it does not work out then these chumps will always take me back, or, I better make sure that I am doing the right thing and have given it the appropriate amount of thinking because this door will close behind me. In some ways this becomes a test of character. If you leave and then want to come back then are you considered to be weak of character?
RE: Rehiring Employee
If one of the chumps had gone we wouldn't be having this discussion because you'd have said "No thanks, you chose to go, stay gone."
So the fact is that you want to rehire this guy because this guy is an OK worker.
You haven't stated the policy clearly enough for yourself to act on it:
"Good guys can come back, chumps can't."
By re-hiring this guy you think the message going out is:
"Any one can come back."
So what? When one of the chumps goes and tries to come back you'll get the real message across.
On the other hand, if you don't rehire this guy the message that goes out will be:
"No rehires, no way, no how." and that is a message that could hurt you in future. Now in fact because not rehiring this guy is going to cost you more than rehiring and it won't send out the message you think you need to send.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Rehiring Employee
BUT, I definitely agree with everyone else that it depends upon the character of the employee and whether or not his reasons for leaving in the first place have been resolved.
RE: Rehiring Employee
Some now hires made by one of my past companies have turned out to be disasters. They specialized in hiring unqualified individuals. That's what you see in small companies.
RE: Rehiring Employee
He worked there for a week and quit there because the heavy machine operators were heavily using drugs and working drunk. He came back in less than a week and many people in the other departments never knew he had left.
We had a marketer that quit and came back for his job after the weekend. Both of the staff have been recognized by corporate for their good works. You should expect people who take their careers seriously to go through some internal crises in their lifetimes.
i don't see any mixed signals in rehiring. supposedly, if the employee was not worth rehiring, he/she would not have left on their own free will in the first place. Being rehired should eliminate many of the false expectations on both sides. i.e. my friend had the false expectation of working in a safe and legal environment.
RE: Rehiring Employee
I am definitely softening on my position to this issue.
Sometimes we (I) take things too personally, such as someone leaving for what they think is a better situation elsewhere.
Thank you all for some great thoughts.