Social-media posts from boomerangs can help with recruitment in a still-tight labor market by showing the firm is a good place to work, according to Catherine Shea, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business who co-authored a 2021 study on returning employees.
But Shea and her team found that boomerangs come with a cost. They analyzed two groups of employees at a US professional services firm: Workers who had boomeranged and similar workers who had never left. They found that boomerangs were paid more but performed on a similar level as employees who stayed. Still, boomerangs tended to spend more time on long-term projects, which might benefit firms because it indicates they have a deeper level of commitment to the company.
Matthew Wragg, CEO of engineering and tech recruitment firm Gattaca, says he’s hired six boomerang employees in the past three months.
“You’ve got that cultural cognizance,” he says. “They know the culture. They know the operating processes.”
They also tend to change little between their first and second tours of the company, according to a study that John Arnold of the University of Missouri conducted with a team of other researchers. They examined some 30,000 boomerang and traditional employees over eight years. They found that in general, employees who performed well in their first stints also performed well in their second. Those who underperformed at first continued to underperform when they returned.
Staging a Comeback
This is why companies considering bringing back a boomerang candidate need to investigate carefully why he or she left in the first place, says Paul McDonald, a senior executive director at recruiter Robert Half. Red flags might be dissatisfaction with upward mobility, concerns about management, or poor cultural fit. Those issues are unlikely to have changed in the interim. On the other hand, salary, benefits and non-monetary perks are all issues that can be solved, within reason.
Candidates looking to boomerang should carefully consider whether going back to an old employer is the right move, says Mark Royal, a senior director at consultant Korn Ferry. Some may look to jump back too soon without giving their new jobs enough of a try.
Those who do decide to jump back should cast their time away in a positive light, he says.
“You want to be framing it in terms of what you’ve learned in the role you’re now leaving and what you can bring back to your former employer and why that will be valuable for you both,” says Royal.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.