Boomerangs are big business!

The demand for professionals and specialists are leading many companies to assume strategies that were once considered forbidden - the re-hiring of people who have departed for greener pastures.

AN executive vice president of Pragati Informatics, Pvt, Ltd, a start up company, responsible for developing a world-class Web service model needed to build her staff quickly. Rather than start from scratch, she decided to track down former high- performing employees and invite them to rejoin the company. The demand for professionals and specialists are leading many companies to assume strategies that were once considered forbidden: the re-hiring of people who have departed for greener pastures. For years, executives, managers and recruiters have dismissed the notion of rehiring former colleagues, people with whom they once shared milestones, ideas and projects. Although the decision not to rehire people is seldom written into policy, it seeps into the culture and the thinking. Why? Because many companies mistakenly and collectively take departures personally, viewing them as betrayals. The stubbornness of those organisations represents gains made by competitors. But with changing times and force of necessity, organisations are forced to think aggressively about seeking and hiring professionals and specialists. As a result, the workforce recruitment model has steadily expanded to include rehiring former employees.

Companies now encourage managers and recruiters to not only to maintain contact with former employees, but also to keep those former employees in the loop when new opportunities or positions emerge. As for the former employees, many want to return to the people and community with which they once worked, having been disappointed or disillusioned with the reality of employment elsewhere. (This technique often works well when employees leave to pursue freelance or consulting careers.) Organisations often increase the temptation of rehiring by inviting employees to return without penalty or prejudice - for example, with vacation or sabbatical eligibility reinstated.

A re-recruitment programme carries enormous benefits but is not easy to deploy: It requires that management take a critical look at how and why star employees' leave. Re-recruitment works when a company understands what matters most to individual employees, anticipates when an employee is open to lures from another company, and is prepared to customise a response that meets the needs of both the company and the employee. But boomerang recruitment as it is known, is not without its risks, employees who are in perpetual recruitment mode may not get the sense of ownership in the company that is so critical for retention.

Ten Steps to Re-Recruitment

1. Blame yourself first. Start with the premise that top performers are leaving because you are an ineffective manager.

2. Make managers accountable. The company must come down hard on managers who consistently drive away good talent or who inadequately prepare new recruits for the job ahead.

3. Re-recruit your best people. Maintain dialogue with employees to determine when, where, and how the company can induce star talent to remain on board.

4. Build interactivity. Leverage the power of the Web by building and fostering a digital gateway where the company can sell the mission. This allows employees to visualise new opportunities for growth, community, and fun.

5. Eliminate Mickey Mouse policies. Seek and destroy people unfriendly policies such as inflexible work schedules and stringent dress codes before they poison the corporate culture and turn away potential candidates.

6. Demand pre-exit interviews. If you can't avoid losing a desirable employee, try to understand the real issues, which are never what you think they are.

7. Leverage your recruiters. Design recruiter / employee relationship- building events into the re-recruitment programme. These must not appear to be company-sponsored; they should instead be genuine opportunities for recruiters to build personal relationships.

8. Reward re-recruitment. Adjust compensation to provide an incentive for in-house recruiters to re-recruit existing top performers.

9. Promote re-recruitment. Publicise re-recruitment activity so that the top employees call the in-house re-recruiter before they take the call of a recruiter representing another company.

10. Act quickly. If an employee comes in with another offer, he or she needs answers in no more than a day.

Progressive companies that focus on recruiting business professionals should insert the many varieties of boomeranging into their hiring strategies. Failure to do so effectively shuts off a potentially powerful source of qualified professionals. Companies that ignore this will limit their ability to respond to needs and fuel the success of competitor! As the value of domain knowledge, business expertise and process understanding converges, companies that decline to rehire once-terrific employees will miss a tremendous opportunity to satisfy their requirements and bolster their staff. Boomerang recruitment, could be an effective HR solution to the retention problem. Once unthinkable and company - contra, the tool today is a super tactic for corporate survival.

FARZANA JUNAISE

farzana.hyd@careercommunity.co.in