The age of 'boomerang' staff

More and more employees are returning, sometimes more than once, to firms they formerly worked for. JULIE MIDDLETON reports.

Funny how quickly times change - and how short our memories are.

Once, and not that long ago, to leave a company for whatever reason meant shutting the door firmly behind you.

To return to a former employer was seen as somehow shameful, as backsliding and at odds with the career imperative to move on up.

But a skill shortages, constant restructurings, the implosion of dot.coms and the increasing influence of mobile, "me-first" Generation Xers are winging increasing numbers of boomerangs back to offices they've seen before.

Typical of boomerangs - sometimes dubbed "repeat offenders" or "recyclees" - is Wellington project manager Liz Knox.

The 25-year-old first started at recruitment advertising company Haines in March 2000 as a junior account manager.

Promotion to media executive followed, "but then I got the travelling bug. I left on good terms".

In London, she worked in the fraud management section of a multi-national bank, but kept in touch with her former boss and colleagues every couple of months by e-mail.

She was on the road home when she was told that a job had come up. She applied and has been back at Haines since December, working as a project manager.

Some friends had open doubts about the wisdom of returning. Knox, who is one of two boomerangs at Haines, had no qualms.

She says: "I've brought back banking experience - the position I came back to was looking after a bank - the experience of working in a company where you're a number, people skills, maturity and more tolerance for working with people of different nationalities. And loyalty was a big factor."

The benefits of boomerangs for bosses and staff are "massive", says Laurie Finlayson, national director, human resources, of finance and business advice company Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

The company has 18 staff out of its 240 in Auckland who are second-timers; records show it gets back every single person from six-month overseas secondments and 75 per cent of those on longer-term stints.

"It's part of a wider strategy to look after our long-term business," says Finlayson. "The relationships [with boomerangs] are already in place; they have an understanding of staff, culture, networks ... they start with a set of skills and knowledge that is in advance of what we could could compete for in the local market - it gives us a head-start."

And the welcoming back of a familiar face signals to insiders and onlookers that the company is an attractive place to work, says Crispin Garden-Webster, the vice-president of the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand. "And everyone's a recruiter."

Re-employment saves money on training and induction, and there's less likelihood of underwhelming output while people get up to speed.

So what's driving the trend? "The value placed on mobility," says Garden-Webster.

The boomerang trend makes perfect sense, he says, in a climate where research points to 60 to 70 per cent of people quitting their bosses rather than the company.

"The circumstances and opportunities are the deciding features rather than the organisation itself."

Also, he says, "people are more mobile and motivated by growth and opportunity rather than status and security. Single-company careers are less sought-after ... than learning and growth."

And turnover is not a bad thing: "It refreshes the gene pool, and you want a certain amount of that."

At Dunedin's Natural History Unit, "25 per cent to a third are boomerangs", according to managing director Michael Stedman. "The sort of people who want to step out are the people you want back. They're self-motivated self-starters."

Small companies with limited career development opportunities should encourage talented staff to look elsewhere for new challenges, says Michelle McCormack, business development manager HR for Wellington's Infinity Solutions.

But employers shouldn't make promises of future jobs, says McCormack: bosses should ensure they know why someone is leaving - travel, training, need a change - and if they are valued, communicate that. And employers looking at a re-hire need to make sure comfort and security aren't the candidate's major motivators.

Even the armed forces, that last bastion of the lifetime career, have come to grips with re-engagement.

"In the old days - say, five years ago - if you left you were seen as a splitter," says Mike Shatford, the New Zealand Army's director of recruiting and marketing.

"To be honest, there are still pockets of this old school. But the reality is that there is very little difference between the external job market and our own."

This has demanded change: the standard engagement, once 20 years, is now six for a soldier and 15 for an officer.

Army staffers, says Shatford, tend to move on at years three to four, eight to nine, and twelve.

"Some of them are parenting, on their OE, or sick of it ... it all comes back to life stage. We've started to get back the people who left early."

Returns are considered on a case-by-case basis.

Law firms and, to a lesser extent, professional services companies, have an established history of welcoming former employees back.

"It's not unusual for lawyers to do their OE and come back," says Gretchen Young, of Bell Gully Wellington.

"If you've started out with a particular firm, it's like you grow up in a family - you get embedded in the culture. And there's a clear path of progression."

Time out for secondments and OEs can be negotiated for top staff, says Ernst and Young HR head Richard de Haast: "It's pragmatism that says that if people are good and prepared to come back, we'll make allowances. They'll come back and be intensely loyal as a result."

Young herself is a seasoned boomerang. She's been hired and rehired by Bell Gully offices in New Zealand three times over the last 16 years, each time in different roles: junior solicitor, HR manager, and now HR projects manager.

She illustrates a priority for those contemplating going back to the future: returning to a different and more challenging position each time so career momentum continues. Otherwise, it's just a time-filler, not career development.

The desire to catch boomerangs has led several companies into concerted courting of "alumni". Deloitte is one, with staff dedicated to a large "alumni contact" database.

Ernst and Young is also setting up an alumni network, says de Haast, which will be focused on an interactive website.

However, boomeranging comes with a caution. Company culture may have changed to an extent that the returned staffer is rendered less productive.

The re-hire - especially if they have just got off the plane from the big OE - may have shorter-term plans than disclosed.

There is also a risk that a return will bring with it familiarity which may breed an unhelpfully casual approach to work. And the original reasons for going need to be examined as closely as the reasons for returning.

But these are all issues picked up early by solid and in-depth recruitment methods, and the negatives would seem to be far outweighed by the positives.

The case against

Work is more than a wage, says Paul Reyneke: it's a emotional commitment no less intense than an intimate relationship.

And that's why he's dead against re-hires.

The mutual process of disengagement which follows a resignation - regardless of the reason - is permanent, says Southern Cross' strategic development manager, who has 20 years in sales and HR.

And that letting-go is followed invariably by an irreversible disillusionment. And both will interfere with relationships and productivity second time around.

"The decision to leave a company is an emotional one," he says. "Both parties have to disengage and as time goes on, you start seeing the little mistakes, the iniquities, better."

Reyneke has witnessed people once held in high esteem become villains in the weeks and months after their departure. "It's human nature," he says.

His analogy: returning to an old employer becomes like bumping into a former lover on the street. Distance and disaffection: you wonder what enthralled you so much.

Re-hiring, he adds, is "huge admittance of an error - 'we should not have let you go'. Only in cases where a person has very particular -and very scarce - skills should an employer approach an ex-employee."