Boomerang Hires: The Benefits And Risks Of Rehiring Employees

Additional resources

• Reasons Employees Are Leaving Their Jobs & How To Prevent It
• Costly Hiring Mistakes and How To Avoid Them
• How To Write An Employee Offer Letter With Sample and Template
• Hiring & Salary Guide

Tips for dealing with boomerang employees

1. Don’t let the presence of stress be the reason you take the path of least resistance. It will always be the easiest decision to bring the person back on, but is it the smartest? Even if they have a great skill set, it has to be the right person with the right skill set at the right time for the right job.
2. Just because people apply for your job, doesn’t mean you have to hire them. Even if they have worked for you in the past, you shouldn’t be compelled to hire an individual you don’t want. You have freewill and its your decision to make, just don’t forget to do it fairly and follow EEOC laws. 
3. You can leave the door open for employees looking for new opportunities, but don’t let your organization be viewed as a revolving door. How committed would would current employees be if they viewed their role as something they can leave and then come back whenever they want?
4. It is crucial to interview those boomerang employees. While that same employee could be back and better than ever, they could also be a completely different person now. Don’t assume, you will never now unless you conduct an actual interview. 
5. The first few weeks after an employee leaves is a true indication of how much they benefitted your organization. What will you see after they leave? A mess or the great work they were doing? Keep this in mind when they return.

Transcript

Pete Newsome  00:07
Welcome, everyone, and thank you for listening to The Hire Calling Podcast. I’m your host Pete Newsome. And I’m joined once again by Ricky Baez. Ricky, how are you today?

Ricky Baez  00:14
I’m doing great Pete living the dream. How about yourself, sir?

Pete Newsome  00:15
I’m doing all right, man. It’s a busy time. But I’m happy to be here. And we’re going to have an interesting discussion today I think, about something that is probably on a lot of hiring managers and HR professional’s minds.

Pete Newsome  00:30
Can you guess what it might be?

Ricky Baez  00:32
Pay?

Pete Newsome  00:34
Not Pay.

Ricky Baez  00:35
Okay. I’ll get there.

Ricky Baez  00:39
Free pizza on Fridays?

Pete Newsome  00:41
Free pizza on Fridays. We are Planet Fitness.

Ricky Baez  00:46
That’s a Tuesday by the way for Planet Fitness. But okay, fine.

Pete Newsome  00:49
It is Tuesday? The only day you go to the gym, right? Your workout day?

Ricky Baez  00:54
Absolutely. Every Tuesday you get free Papa John’s man, we should send them a bill for this.

Pete Newsome  00:59
Is that actually? Did they give doughnuts one day don’t they?

Ricky Baez  01:02
Do they? I don’t know.

Ricky Baez  01:04
Okay, well, you know what a great, here we go off topic. What a great business model right? This is what keeps them coming back.

Pete Newsome  01:12
Exactly.

Ricky Baez  01:12
Keeps them coming back, so excellent.

Pete Newsome  01:14
We’re off topic. And we haven’t even…

Ricky Baez  01:16
We haven’t even started our topic, that’s us, man.

Pete Newsome  01:20
But we do have a topic and our topic is boomerang employees. Are they good to hire back? Or should you avoid it?

Pete Newsome  01:29
And I’m hoping that by talking through this both on a theoretical plane as well as our own personal experiences, I hope we can come up with a conclusion.

Pete Newsome  01:40
I’m not sure we will.

Pete Newsome  01:41
But I was hoping that we could talk through the pros and cons and kind of look at it from every angle and see what we think after a healthy discussion.

Pete Newsome  01:49
How’s that sound?

Ricky Baez  01:49
Absolutely great, because that is a very timely topic with everything happening in the workforce today.

Ricky Baez  01:55
So absolutely.

Pete Newsome  01:56
Yeah, so boomerang employees, for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s exactly how it sounds. It’s an employee who’s left an organization and then comes back, just like a boomerang.

Pete Newsome  02:07
We’re seeing that happen with frequency right now in the market, starting with COVID, with a great resignation kicking in and now we’re seeing well, we’ve seen a lot of what I consider to be unnatural corporate hiring.

Pete Newsome  02:23
What I mean by that is that we’ve seen companies hire, ramp up their staff, and pay wages significantly higher than they were used to paying perhaps significantly higher than they would pay under normal conditions. I’m not sure what normal is at this point. But we’ve seen huge increases in ramped up hiring and HR in particular.

Pete Newsome  02:45
So being in staffing we see that is a prevalent fashion that companies are corporate entities are rate ramping up their HR departments ramping up their recruiting teams.

Pete Newsome  02:57
But now things are starting to slide a little bit in the other direction. We’re seeing layoffs in the past couple of weeks. And it’s not making as much noise in the press as it probably should.

Pete Newsome  03:10
But Carvana laid off 2500 people.

Ricky Baez  03:13
I saw that!

Pete Newsome  03:13
Meta Facebook is putting a hiring freeze in place. There are a couple of other examples that seem that I’m reading every time I pull up Twitter, of companies, either freezing or downsizing, whatever you want to call it, but the tide is shifting a little bit.

Pete Newsome  03:30
So now a lot of the employees who left for what they thought would be greener pastures, realizing either by their own choice or their new employer’s choice that wasn’t so green are trying to come back to their former jobs and former employer.

Pete Newsome  03:48
So we’re going to talk about whether that’s a good idea for the companies to take them back. So what’s your take on that just at a high level?

Ricky Baez  03:56
Pete at a high level and look, as somebody who’s been in HR for about 20 plus years, I kind of smell this and kind of saw this coming, because there was a huge ramp up in turnover, you know, with the great resignation, still a big relevant topic these days, and people leaving left and right.

Ricky Baez  04:15
It’s happening at such a breakneck speed that I don’t know if either the candidates or the recruiters or hiring or the organizations are saying fill positions.

Ricky Baez  04:25
If they’re really taking the time to stop and realize wait a minute, why are we filling these positions so quickly? Why are we ramping up so fast and why are we not doing this gradually?

Ricky Baez  04:37
I mean that’s just me as as a Monday morning quarterback with this right now, because I’m noticing it, you’re noticing, and I have a lot of clients who are noticing that as well.

Ricky Baez  04:47
Right so yeah, I agree with you. This is something that’s happening right now there are two parts to boomerang.

Ricky Baez  04:54
When it leaves your hands and then when it comes back. Right, and the question is, are you going to receive it back if it’s a good idea or not?

Ricky Baez  05:00
And I don’t know, it really depends on why they left and how they left.

Pete Newsome  05:04
So you should duck?

Ricky Baez  05:07
If that’s coming way faster than the way I sent it, duck and done.

Pete Newsome  05:11
Well, all right, so let’s talk through the pros and cons and see how we feel.

Pete Newsome  05:15
So pros, I’ll throw the first one out there as sort of an obvious layup, you have a chance to hire back an employee who already has trained, knows your systems, and processes, whatever those might be, and can hit the ground running a known quantity, if you will, who is productive from day one.

Pete Newsome  05:36
So that’s a pro and a pretty big one, it’s a pretty compelling reason. Because if an employee leaves under reasonable circumstances, and they resign the right way, they give two weeks’ notice they work hard until the end, they don’t burn bridges, now I say all of those things, by the way, as if they should be a given they’re far from again, we’ve talked about that already.

Pete Newsome  05:57
However, it’s a good time to point out, that they should be a given that no matter what you think, the moment you walk out the door, or you decide to leave, just zoom out a little bit, look forward and consider how you want to be thought of and talked about, on the other side of that decision.

Pete Newsome  06:18
To say, by the employer should behave right you know, just because an employee resigns, it was no reason to not treat them professionally and with courtesy every step of the way, because you want to always put on good terms.

Pete Newsome  06:31
So we know that but it’s worth saying, because I think a lot of people right now who are left, under bad circumstances are probably regretting that departure right now, because they didn’t expect to be looking backward.

Pete Newsome  06:45
Seeing that those pastures they left, you know, were maybe green after all, but so if all that’s in place, so a candidate who’s left or an employee who’s left who comes back, ready to go, that’s not a bad thing is it?

Ricky Baez  07:02
It’s not a bad thing. If we welcome them back, it really isn’t a bad thing.

Ricky Baez  07:08
Now, I’m going to think like a recruiter right now, or better yet a hiring authority, somebody in charge of the talent acquisition process.

Pete Newsome  07:16
Why don’t you think like the owner of the business? How about that?

Ricky Baez  07:19
There we go, the owner? That’s right.

Pete Newsome  07:20
The one who’s ultimately, and I think of this, check too much. But I think of that all the time with 4 Corner Resources, a staffing company, as the owner of the business, I’m the only one who’s not leaving.

Pete Newsome  07:34
So every day, I have to think, am I creating an environment that people want to be in? Do they see future growth opportunities? And can they thrive here?

Pete Newsome  07:44
All of those things, because I know every day someone has a decision when they get up in the morning, are they going to spend their time working for an organization, or they’re going to do quite literally anything else?

Pete Newsome  07:55
And so that’s a decision that has to be made every day. So I always think, well, I’m the only one that’s not leaving, or they can’t leave, I’m not the one that isn’t leaving. I’m the only one that can’t leave.

Pete Newsome  08:06
So everyone else is kind of here by choice. So anyway, back to that. So if you think like the business owner, you’re really getting to the truest of the answers, in my opinion, in a situation like this.

Ricky Baez  08:15
Agreed.

Ricky Baez  08:16
So with the business owner hat on, what I would think first is okay, from my perspective, 30,000 feet up, I’m looking down, and I want to have a conversation with the recruiter first.

Ricky Baez  08:29
Here’s why I would want to have a conversation with the recruiter, because I know how stressful it is for recruiters these days, right? There are a lot of positions open, there are a lot of positions changing hands these days, and recruiters are stressed, I completely understand that.

Ricky Baez  08:43
I don’t want the presence of stress to be the reason we take the path of least resistance to bring somebody back. I don’t want that to be the only reason, right? Because exactly like the pro teacher said, it’s just easier to bring the person back on.

Ricky Baez  09:00
Yes, they may have those credentials, but there isn’t that much ramp up time you go into the need for the person to get used to the processes of that organization. Yeah, they got a great skill set. But do they know the culture? Do they know the key players? Do they know the stakeholders?

Ricky Baez  09:14
You plug that hole relatively quickly, If you bring somebody else who’s used to that, what I don’t want to do, I don’t want my recruiters to let that be the only reason we welcome somebody back just because it’s easier.

Ricky Baez  09:27
It’s got to be the right person with the right skill set at the right time for the right job.

Pete Newsome  09:32
Okay, so I want to change what I said a little bit because I jumped in and shouldn’t have and I said something that after a little thought, which is hard to do sometimes on the fly when we’re having this podcast because it’s not scripted.

Pete Newsome  09:50
We shouldn’t just look at it from the perspective of the business owner and you are 100% correct in saying you should look at the recruiter who has their own set of considerations and we’re talking about a corporate recruiter, in this instance, who needs to fill the job, they’re motivated to fill the job.

Pete Newsome  10:06
As you said, they may feel pressure to fill the job if the clock’s ticking and the market have been super tight, in favor of candidates, so filling any job has been a challenge these days.

Pete Newsome  10:16
So they may concede, I think that’s what you, or make concessions, right that they perhaps shouldn’t make.

Pete Newsome  10:22
And then you have the actual manager’s perspective, the person who has to live with that hire, who should be weighing in on the decision. And then somewhere down the line, you do have the business owner, depending on the size of the organization.

Pete Newsome  10:35
But I think that is not necessarily the person who we should consider first.

Ricky Baez  10:41
Correct, yeah, just because it’s easier.

Pete Newsome  10:43
I was very self serving on my part to say that, but not necessarily the most important perspective in this instance.

Ricky Baez  10:51
Well, you know, that’s why whether it’s the recruiter, the hiring authority, the person in charge of the talent acquisition process, or the business leader, they all need to be on the same sheet of music, to see who we welcome come back, or we just hire on whether or somebody brand new off the street.

Ricky Baez  11:05
I hate to say it that way because we’re not on the street, you know what I mean? Or just somebody who was here in the past, right? Because, again, if I see somebody who I’m like, oh, they were here a year ago, my biggest thing is what changed?

Ricky Baez  11:20
I will have to take a look at why they left, to begin with, right? And then when they come back, I will want to ask them what changed? Why? Why would you like to come back then?

Pete Newsome  11:28
So let’s explore that a little bit. But let’s assume as I did, that, nothing had changed in terms of the needs still being what it was when this person resigned, and you liked him then, right?

Pete Newsome  11:44
Because if this person chose to leave versus being asked to leave, that’s entirely different. But if they chose to leave, and you’re the employer, they were in good standing. At the time they are coming back, there’s no reason to think that would change.

Pete Newsome  12:02
On the surface, do you like the idea of bringing back someone versus hiring an employee off the street?

Ricky Baez  12:09
So it depends on who it is? I’m going, to be honest, it really depends on who it is.

Pete Newsome  12:16
What are the factors? So, run through that.

Ricky Baez  12:19
Here’s the thing, look, it’s honestly, I’m going to be really brutally honest with you, or no, necessarily honest, because we went through a training a few months ago, where I explained the difference between brutally honest and necessarily honest, so I’m going to use that training there, Pete.

Ricky Baez  12:31
No, so I’m going to be necessarily honest here. If somebody, every organization has its power players, every organization has their middle 70%. And every organization has its bottom 15%, who you know what? They’re doing, okay.

Ricky Baez  12:51
They’re not really motivated to just do just enough that yet, just enough not to get fired, right? Every organization has that, when that person leaves, I’m not going to lie, there is a celebration in the office, right?

Ricky Baez  13:05
The people celebrate, yes, finally, they’re gone, because sometimes, you know, you kind of have your hands tied behind your back, because look, they’re doing okay, they don’t necessarily have a good relationship with the culture of the organization. And they decided to self inject.

Ricky Baez  13:21
If I have somebody like that, I’m going to be really reluctant to bring them back on. I really am, right, because I want somebody, yes, who’s got the skill set necessary to take the organization from A to B.

Ricky Baez  13:33
But to me, more importantly, they have to have the chemistry with the rest of the team, they have to live and breathe, the culture of the organization. And that’s the level at which I measure people on whether I welcome them back, or I hire them off the street.

Pete Newsome  13:50
So if I use a different way of phrasing that, would it be appropriate to say, you wouldn’t hire back the people, you probably should have terminated?

Ricky Baez  14:00
Ah, yes, sir.

Pete Newsome  14:02
Not that we want to go down that road. But I think every organization experiences and this is not to be critical of that decision, because I’d have to look inward first. And I can tell you, I’m certainly guilty of allowing that bottom 15% of employees at times to linger.

Pete Newsome  14:24
But I think it’s also a good lesson when if you don’t if you’re not willing to hire someone back who did leave under good circumstances provided the needs are still there for the role that they could fill, and everything else is equal. And then you say, “Yeah, but I don’t want them.”

Pete Newsome  14:40
I think it’s worth asking yourself and whoever’s involved in the organization, why’d we let them stay in the first place?

Ricky Baez  14:46
That is a great question. No, seriously, great question.

Pete Newsome  14:48
Perhaps the convenient and easy thing to do? And I think that probably happens a lot.

Ricky Baez  14:52
Well, you know, from an HR point of view. I get asked that question quite a bit, Pete. You know, it’s somebody who doesn’t work the way the business leader wants that person to work, but they’re not working bad enough where it warrants a separation conversation.

Ricky Baez  15:10
That’s a little limbo area, right? That we have to be aware of, right? Because look, it’s sometimes if somebody’s performing just the way they are, that’s fine. They’re doing the job that you’re paying them to do. If they go below that, that’s when you have to take that action, right.

Ricky Baez  15:26
But if they’re just not keeping up with the rest, in my opinion, it’s alright. Nothing’s going to change. I’m not going to bring that person back.

Ricky Baez  15:34
And for anybody listening at the very least in the state of Florida, because in the state of Florida it is an employment at will state which by the way, I learned last week.

Ricky Baez  15:42
Did you know Pete, how many states in the United States are employment at will?

Pete Newsome  15:49
Well, ‘m going to say one.

Ricky Baez  15:50
One? You are 48 off.

Pete Newsome  15:57
Okay, the way you presented that I thought you were tricking me?

Pete Newsome  16:04
I mean, unless you’re a union employee. I don’t understand. I’m not familiar with restrictions on why an employer could let someone go, I thought it was a trick question.

Ricky Baez  16:19
No, it wasn’t because interpret that right. It baffled me too. I was at a conference last week over in Maryland. And when an employment Labor and Employment and Labor Law Attorney Christine Walters, got up and started doing a great presentation about employment as well. And she asked your crowd, how many of you how many employment I will stay started? And I’m like, 15. And he likes me? Like five? He’s like, 49? No. Did nobody say why? Well, you did. Florida. Dude, it was it’s 49.

Pete Newsome  16:53
So who’s the one then that Montana? Wait, Montana. Free estate of all,

Ricky Baez  17:00
In my mind is Montana has now I’m paraphrasing because I was shocked. I’m like, why to Montana? She’s like, this is not a trick question exactly how you said, she’s like Montana has a rule or a law, a statute that says an employer needs to have a reason of why they’re going to separate employment from an employee. Now, everybody else, HR tells them, you give them a reason because you don’t want them to, you know, make something else up but the half to give a reason, if you don’t have a reason you cannot terminate. And I’m like, I did not know that. I’m gonna go back and talk to my students. I’m gonna go back and talk to Pete about it. Because yeah, that was news to me.

Pete Newsome  17:41
So I would love to see a list of the reasons, you know, how are they? Right? I mean,

Ricky Baez  17:46
I’m gonna look that up. I mean,

Pete Newsome  17:48
I think of Montana without having lived there and visited there quite a few times. And it’s a place that I wouldn’t mind living in one day, but that I’m surprised that they would have those sorts of restrictions because I see them as almost an anti big government. State and that’s a very invasive thing for the government to decide. Who what, whether your, your reason for terminating employees justified.

Ricky Baez  18:18
It’s That’s right. To me, it was so off the left field because again, Montana, really out of all the states has that one. I’m thinking maybe New York, California, Montana because everybody’s saying California, which they California, almost everybody raised their hand. Right? So, man, we weren’t really right. feel so lucky for

Pete Newsome  18:35
You to listen in California. If you should change your resume, man, you’re really sure you’re doing a pretty good job. Everyone. You go. Okay, so yeah, we are way off topic. So So we’re, let’s bring it back. And

Ricky Baez  18:51
Well, here’s what I was saying, here’s why I brought that up, right. I want everybody to know this. Just because people apply for your job. It doesn’t mean you have to hire them.

Ricky Baez  19:03
Because a lot of people have this misconception that if somebody leaves and they come back and they apply well, he worked here he or she works here in the past.

Ricky Baez  19:11
They have this weird feeling that they have to hire them back.

Ricky Baez  19:15
Folks you don’t, at the end of the day in the state of Florida, in the employment at well state, you are able to hire whoever you want, and you’re able not to hire whoever you want, so long as it’s done fairly, and it doesn’t violate EEOC laws. That’s it, right.

Ricky Baez  19:28
So I wanted to say that piece and that’s where we went off on a tangent with employment at will. I wanted to say that because I don’t want people to feel compelled to or not to hire somebody if they don’t want to so long as you’re doing it the right way. Especially the people who you know, and they’re coming back.

Pete Newsome  19:44
Okay, so, free will.

Pete Newsome  19:46
No, restrictions, it’s all about whether it’s a good idea.

Pete Newsome  19:51
Okay, so it’s a known quantity, right?

Ricky Baez  19:51
Correct.

Pete Newsome  19:56
The person is a known quantity. You know what you’re getting, you know, the good and the bad and that’s an attractive thing where this fictitious employee off the street that we’re now, it’s a crapshoot.

Ricky Baez  20:11
Yep.

Pete Newsome  20:11
Where I would say, you know, the devil, you know, sort of premise where, okay, maybe let’s just go through it for fun, we decided that D and F employees, we should have terminated already and definitely shouldn’t hire back. Is that fair?

Ricky Baez  20:26
Got it, that’s fair.

Pete Newsome  20:27
Okay.

Pete Newsome  20:29
An A employee your top person in the department leaves, you know, to pursue a role again, under good terms.

Pete Newsome  20:40
Any reason not to hire that person back?

Pete Newsome  20:41
Culturally they’re a good fit, it’s going to improve morale, and everyone’s going to be happy to see this person come back, would you hesitate to bring back your A player who left?

Pete Newsome  20:43
It would depend on how they left.

Pete Newsome  20:55
They left in the best possible way, Ricky, you remember that.

Pete Newsome  21:00
They said, “I’m going to give you a month’s notice if you’d like it, I will work 50 hours every week, during that period.”

Pete Newsome  21:09
And, you know, you had a tear in your eye practically. I mean, this person did everything right.

Ricky Baez  21:16
So I would bring them back, here’s why.

Ricky Baez  21:19
If I know all those factors, they left the right way. They were an amazing employee, they did everything in their power to make sure that they help us in the transition process, right. They didn’t burn the bridge, they actually reinforced it.

Ricky Baez  21:33
I would welcome that person back versus a person off the street because a person off the streets and I got to come up with a different name for that. Somebody who I don’t know, let’s just say that somebody who I don’t know.

Ricky Baez  21:45
I don’t know what I’m getting with them above and beyond their cover letter interview and resume. I don’t know what I’m getting.

Ricky Baez  21:51
Whereas the person who left I know their cover letter, resume, interview, how they work, their kids, what their favorite color is, all these things. It’s just an easy plugin.

Ricky Baez  22:02
So absolutely, I would bring that person back, if all those factors are met.

Pete Newsome  22:08
Alright, so there’s our A player and of course, we’re going to bring them back.

Pete Newsome  22:11
B player, this is someone who does their job really well. They typically go above and beyond. They gave a typical two weeks notice, they were drama free.

Ricky Baez  22:11
Yeah.

Pete Newsome  22:26
So you do know that they’re not going to cause any trouble. Kind of that next level down. They’re not the best, but they’re better than average. Alright, I think we can call that a B.

Ricky Baez  22:39
Two jobs ago, just for the record two jobs ago, we had a name for that somebody drama free.

Ricky Baez  22:44
Delta foxtrot.

Ricky Baez  22:46
That’s what we call somebody who was drama free.

Ricky Baez  22:48
Hey, I got 12345 candidates, all Delta Foxtrots, people are like what are you talking about? It’s like drama free? You don’t get it? Get on my team, right?

Pete Newsome  22:58
Listen, that is not insignificant.

Ricky Baez  23:01
No, it’s not. It’s we take a look. I take a look at that, right?

Ricky Baez  23:04
So this is a B player left perfect. Still, to me, a B player, I know them better than the people that I don’t know. I will still bring them back, to be honest.

Pete Newsome  23:16
Okay.

Ricky Baez  23:18
Now it is going to get dicey.

Pete Newsome  23:20
So we know what we’re doing with A’s and B’s, we know what to do with the D’s and F’s.

Ricky Baez  23:23
Yeah.

Pete Newsome  23:24
So now the C player, and let’s even call them a C plus for fun, where this person is meeting expectations from top to bottom on their review. They’re not exceeding anything.

Pete Newsome  23:36
They certainly aren’t a superstar, but they are doing the bare minimum consistently, head down, you know, and maybe every once in a while you know, you have to tell them to pick up the pace a little bit.

Pete Newsome  23:49
But certainly not what anyone would consider a problem.

Pete Newsome  23:54
All right, how do you view that one?

Ricky Baez  23:58
So this is me and me talking, right? Because I like to take risks, I think my risk tolerance is pretty high.

Ricky Baez  24:07
At that point, in my opinion. I don’t know, I kind of want to see what’s out there.

Pete Newsome  24:13
So in poker terms, I think of this person as a pair of jacks.

Pete Newsome  24:20
It’s a pair of jacks.

Ricky Baez  24:22
I’m horrible at poker. You used the wrong reference with me.

Pete Newsome  24:26
Okay, well, it’s just a reference. It’s just a hand where you start with you know, you open with every you’re playing and hold them, then you go oh, this is I just know this is there are so many better things out there, but it’s far from the worst.

Ricky Baez  24:40
So a draw four in Uno. Okay, I got it. That’s bad, I don’t even know how to play Uno. Look at that, Pete.

Pete Newsome  24:47
No, that’s definitely not a draw four. But you’re saying I’d rather roll the dice, take a chance, with that person off the street, than hiring a, you know, an average, top to bottom average person.

Pete Newsome  25:09
Because I think what you’re saying is, you know, the organization is not going to improve that way, they’re just going to stay where it already is.

Ricky Baez  25:15

So now I may have a different answer at a different point in time. Right now, there’s a lot of talent out there.

Ricky Baez  25:25
But we have to kind of fight for that talent because you know, prices are getting kind of a high these days.

Ricky Baez  25:31
But in an environment, where unemployment is extremely high, I can’t find anybody, yeah, I’ll give that C player a shot to come back.

Pete Newsome  25:42
Well, in the market, where we are in a space where we operate. There’s not a lot of talent out there. I would say this is a now that may change based on what we’re seeing.

Pete Newsome  25:53
But unemployment in Florida, in the professional roles where we operate, I would say is not existent.

Ricky Baez  26:03
Do you see it that way? Because I see that there’s talent out there, it is just way too expensive. Just like gas, it’s a lot of gas out there. It’s just like $5 a gallon. It’s just way too expensive.

Pete Newsome  26:14
Well, you know, that’s its own discussion, you know, when you think of the market dictates salaries to me, I’ve always viewed it that way.

Pete Newsome  26:16
I don’t think employers should dictate salaries, I think the market has to do that, you have to look at the conditions and the opportunity, the competition, you know, because the employers, the obligation is on the employers to pay, what will attract the talent they need, at any given time.

Pete Newsome  26:45
Right now, it is, and this is an objective statement, I believe. It is a time wherein professional roles, certainly, in the southeast, I can’t really account for the northeast or places that have locked downs, because I don’t spend as much time thinking about the job markets there.

Pete Newsome  27:05
And I’m certainly not as firsthand involved as I am.

Pete Newsome  27:10
From Florida outward. It’s an employee’s market as strong as it’s ever been. I just see the tide turning a little but not great yet, but we see signs, we see bits and pieces as I as I was saying at the beginning of the show.

Pete Newsome  27:26
So right now, I think it’s happening in large part this, this idea of bringing back employees because the market is so tight, because recruiters, hiring managers, whoever’s involved are making decisions.

Pete Newsome  27:42
Do I want to bring back this okay, level employee? Or do I want to wait for a great employee?

Pete Newsome  27:50
Hopefully, as we’ve talked about, you don’t know if the employee you’re hiring cold is going to be great. So that’s a tough decision, but I definitely see it as an employee market still.

Ricky Baez  28:01
So I see that as well. I think we’ve seen the same thing just a little bit differently because it’s to me, you know when somebody decides to come back, which I have seen that, the big question I would have anybody would have is why are you coming back?

Ricky Baez  28:16
And here with the few amount of people that I’ve been able to have a conversation with about this with people who boomerang back, what happened? Now, at first, they’re like, Oh, well, the market and money.

Ricky Baez  28:27
And then once I really broke down those barriers, they really told me the real reason, look, I was just stressing my job, I wanted something new, something new came up, I jumped on it.

Ricky Baez  28:37
And then I quickly realized that was not the job for me. And I didn’t have the value instilled in me by the previous organization. I didn’t realize how lucky I have good there until I left.

Pete Newsome  28:51
Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. That’s a saying for a reason.

Ricky Baez  28:57
Yeah, so once it’s gone, then you tend to see that value.

Ricky Baez  29:01
You know, when somebody decides to jump ship from one organization to the other, I don’t care how great the interview went, I don’t care how good you feel about that organization, there’s something in the back of your head, that still gives you doubt on whether you’re doing the right decision or not.

Ricky Baez  29:01
But then here’s the other thing. I was talking to a few people last week about this about onboarding and bringing people on board. And I think we talked about this over at four corners downtown in some of the training classes.

Ricky Baez  29:28
Sometimes that voice gets louder as soon as you start because they don’t have everything in order.

Ricky Baez  29:34
As far as new employer orientation is concerned. Sometimes it’s faint, but the voice is still there. And what I tell people who are bringing people on board, you know, people conducting new employee orientation, those leaders I tell them, your job from here on forward, is to shut that voice up is to prove that voice wrong.

Ricky Baez  29:53
Sometimes they do a horrible job at that and people say you know what, I’m going to go back. I’m going to go back they start making phone calls, and sending Facebook messages. “Hey, I missed you guys.” I mean, they don’t say it that way.

Ricky Baez  29:53
That’s what I tell them.

Ricky Baez  30:03
But they start asking other people to see if it’s okay, whether they could just come to you directly. But yeah, it’s they start making those phone calls to start coming back.

Ricky Baez  30:13
But I think the people I have spoken to Pete, it hasn’t been because they made a decision too quickly and they really didn’t think about how good they had it in comparison to an organization that you don’t really know how they really are.

Pete Newsome  30:27
Yeah, I was talking about turnover to our internal team last week a little bit, and I’ve quit every job except for the one I have now. So it would be hypocritical of me to say that’s a bad thing to do.

Pete Newsome  30:45
I don’t think, resigning from my former employees, made me a bad person. I don’t think it made me a bad employee. I don’t think it made me disloyal to the organization.

Pete Newsome  30:54
I think, in each case, there was something that for whatever criteria I was applying at the time I wanted to do more of right, I wanted to be in that new role versus the one I was in.

Pete Newsome  31:06
And that was, you know, the job itself, the opportunity, the income, whatever it might be. And I don’t want anyone internally to be an employee who doesn’t want to be part of the organization, I think, pretty much any company would say that.

Ricky Baez  31:26
Yep.

Pete Newsome  31:27
But I also don’t mind the thought of someone going out and trying to serve themselves better, trying to find a greater opportunity for themselves, it would be hypocritical for me to begrudge anyone that, especially when I’m someone who left a job to start my own business.

Pete Newsome  31:45
And I remember some of the comments made at the time, were skeptical in nature. People, you know, things I heard secondhand, and it was less than, you know, encouraging and optimistic for my chances to go do what I was going to do.

Pete Newsome  32:05
But I always assumed that when I left, if it didn’t work out, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t welcome me back. I didn’t intend for that to happen. I was committed to it not happening.

Pete Newsome  32:15
Fortunately, I didn’t, I didn’t have to find that out. But I always thought as the employee myself, which I used to be, you know, I did a great job while I was here, yeah, I was promoted, I was rewarded, I advanced. If I choose to come back, I would assume they would welcome me with open arms.

Pete Newsome  32:32
But I also realize, having been in the position, I’m in now for almost 17 years and talking to so many companies about their own hiring practices.

Pete Newsome  32:42
That is not a universal feeling, that there are many people in organizations who draw a hard line and say, “Nope, if you didn’t want to be here, we don’t ever want to consider bringing you back.”

Pete Newsome  32:53
And I find that strange for lack of a better way to put it.

Ricky Baez  32:56
So a blanket statement like that. I don’t know why people do that? I don’t know, right? Because I agree and disagree with that. Because I have a different feelings for A and B players and different feelings for C and below players. So obviously, different feelings. But you know, it’s and this is probably a good segue Pete to talk about.

Ricky Baez  33:14
For those business leaders listening right now. What should we do in case you cannot? What you do so far right now, doesn’t keep somebody with you, right? And people still feel compelled to leave. What should you do if they’re a performer, and everybody loves them, they do a great job for you? And you’ve had a great relationship, man, roll out the red carpet.

Ricky Baez  33:38
Seriously, roll out the red carpet, and give them a cake. wish them well, half party, I believe that the more you praise, so it’s not praised, thanking people, thank you for the service you gave us. Best of luck, keep me posted and let’s stay in touch. Right? You leave that door open.

Ricky Baez  33:56
Now that can be positive, or that can be negative. That can be positive, obviously, right? Because you know, the person knows they can come back.

Ricky Baez  34:05
That could be negative as well, depending on the person because they can go not give it their best, they may get fired and might not get fired because they didn’t do a good job. They went into a kind of sea level list when they were A player for you. Because they know they got a safety net back with us.

Ricky Baez  34:19
Well, I mean, it’s what do you do there?

Pete Newsome  34:22
Well, let me build on that a little bit because we don’t care about where they’re going, right? How well that works out.

Pete Newsome  34:33
We do when we wish people well but we don’t care about the success necessarily, of the organization they’re going to that’s not our challenge or place to weigh in on.

Pete Newsome  34:42
But the risk of making it too easy to come back and this is the one downside that I think of for me personally is in the scenario is, does that set the wrong tone and create the wrong perception internally?

Pete Newsome  34:59
Where the organization’s potentially viewed as a revolving door, where you can leave and come, you can come and go as you please.

Pete Newsome  35:12
And I think that is a dangerous path to go down, where you don’t want your employees thinking, it would cause them to value the job that they’re in less.

Ricky Baez  35:27
Do you think so?

Pete Newsome  35:29
Yeah, of course, whether it’s conscious or not.

Pete Newsome  35:31
But you look at it in terms of relationship, and I always make this relationship analogy, if you knew that you could leave your marriage and go try out, you know, not being married for a week or two, or a couple of months.

Pete Newsome  35:46
And then come back, that would be an indication that you didn’t value your marriage very much, fair?

Ricky Baez  35:52
That is very fair.

Pete Newsome  35:54
There’s a slippery slope, where the role itself could be viewed the same way.

Pete Newsome  36:01
If you could just leave and come back, well, how important, how committed are you to the role if you view it as something that you can leave whenever you want, and then come back?

Pete Newsome  36:13
So that’s the part that I don’t like, you seem skeptical of that premise.

Ricky Baez  36:17
A little bit, here’s why because I actually have experience in that two jobs ago, when I was at the call center up in a Lake Mary, we had a point where our team managers were leaving Lake in groups. Leaving and then within nine to 10 months, no, actually 10 months to a year 95% of them came back.

Ricky Baez  36:40
They came back now, this organization was in a part of, of it’s a, it was in a city where it was a five mile radius from the five other call center. So we always competed for the same talent, right?

Ricky Baez  36:52
It’s what I call the call center Mecca. And we competed for the same talent. So people went here when they’re when here.

Ricky Baez  36:57
And what my team noticed is that when people started to come back, other people started saying, “Man, I guess it’s it’s not as bad as it is here as people make it out to be.”

Ricky Baez  37:09
And it became a motivational thing for some people who thought they wanted to leave, they saw like, man, if this A player left and came back, I’m not going, I am sticking right here.

Pete Newsome  37:19
Okay.

Ricky Baez  37:20
I’ve seen that work as well. Now, that’s been my experience. I’m not saying that is the go to formula. But that’s what I saw five years ago.

Pete Newsome  37:29
Yeah, I mean, I like that. That makes sense.

Pete Newsome  37:33
So I have to think about that one for a minute. Because you’re taking what I’m viewing as a potentially negative and describing it as a positive.

Ricky Baez  37:41
We saw it as a positive man, we saw it as a positive, people who we thought were going to leave or not leaving, because other people left and came back. And they didn’t want to disrupt their families that way.

Pete Newsome  37:52
Yeah, that makes sense. I like it.

Pete Newsome  37:55
So I mean, I’m generally inclined, as you can probably tell, by now too, I’m trying to think through all the sides of this, you know, one more negative is that the person who left depending on how long they were gone is not necessarily the person you’re getting back. And you may not know that either.

Pete Newsome  38:12
So it’s probably natural to take that for granted. But depending on the time or experience, we know people evolve and change without too much time passing necessarily, then it may not be that guaranteed when an A player may come back as a C player.

Ricky Baez  38:33
That’s a good point, and this is why it’s crucial to still do an interview then, because otherwise how are you going to know it’s very easy not to conduct an interview for somebody you know, for obvious reasons, right?

Ricky Baez  38:46
But that’s a good point you bring up what if the person left, something else happens, and you get back a completely different Bob? Right?

Ricky Baez  38:53
What do you do you do have to continue, you do have to interview? I would think now, to be honest, Pete, that will be hard for me to do.

Ricky Baez  39:01
If I know somebody why am I going to conduct an interview, just personal Ricky talking right?

Ricky Baez  39:06
Professional Ricky’s like, now we should we don’t know what happened over at that other company.

Ricky Baez  39:11
We all see on social media, how they run their ship. And I don’t know what kind of attitude this person has not hopefully they left it over there and don’t bring it back over here.

Ricky Baez  39:18
We will never know unless we conduct an actual interview, which sounds redundant than it sounds like it doesn’t make sense for somebody you already know. But you see those red flags? If they’re present. They’ll be really visible if you actually do conduct one.

Pete Newsome  39:31
I think that requires a lot of discipline.

Ricky Baez  39:34
Yeah.

Pete Newsome  39:36
Depending on the organization, depending on who’s involved. Yeah, because that’s, the hard road to take is to say, “Nope, we’re not going to make a quick decision on this.” We’re going to put this person through the same process but I think it gives you a much higher without.

Pete Newsome  39:55
If you did it 100 times it’s going to increase your chance of success, you know, 99% of them, whatever, whatever that outcome might be. And I think we’re possible. Just like that individual who left may have changed.

Pete Newsome  40:12
The organization itself could have changed in that timeframe if there were new managers involved, and new peers this person will be working with. So you shouldn’t take that for granted, either.

Pete Newsome  40:22
So I’m glad you brought that up, I think it’s a really good point to consider in this scenario, is, because this person was an A or B, even a C player under the manager they worked for when they left if they’re coming back reporting to someone else, could be an entirely different situation.

Pete Newsome  40:40
Let me ask you this.

Ricky Baez  40:42
So this one just came to my head, let’s say, the person you left, the person that left, we thought wasn’t a player. We thought they were.

Ricky Baez  40:52
Once they’re gone, and we start, I guess doing their work, we find out what in the world? What were they doing?

Ricky Baez  40:58
They’re actually a D player. How would you handle that? I mean, I guess you would handle the same situation as a D and an F player right?

Pete Newsome  41:04
Right? That would be their final grade.

Ricky Baez  41:07
I got it. All right, yeah I answered my own question right when i was asking it.

Pete Newsome  41:11
My high school sophomore has finals coming up. And it’s one of those things where it’s, there are two quarters that make up the semester. And those two quarters are worth 40% of the grade each quarter combining for 80%. And then the exam itself is worth 20.

Pete Newsome  41:29
So it’s really hard to move your grade up with that exam, but you can really hurt it. As you were talking, and this is all taking place in the next week or two with my sophomore. And they can, yeah, if that would be your final exam.

Pete Newsome  41:47
What do we think about you after we see, you know, the mess you left behind, or the great work you were doing, which we may not have even realized because you were introverted, didn’t toot your own horn, maybe someone else was taking credit for your, for your work, and the organization didn’t realize it.

Pete Newsome  42:05
But I do think the true indication of how good an employee was or not, you know, takes place within the first couple of weeks after they’ve left.

Pete Newsome  42:15
And I can give lots of examples on both sides of that. Yeah, surprises are pleasant and otherwise. So that’s a great point to bring up. I think that’s, that’s the way you grade them at the end.

Ricky Baez  42:26
You would and I like I’m actually going to steal that from you, I’m going to use the ABCDEF thing for people coming back.

Ricky Baez  42:34
But you know what, let me talk, it’s if it’s okay with you, I want to talk directly to the organizations who bring somebody in and maybe have an inkling the person is gonna go back, right, because you want to stop that, you want to plug that hole, you want to make sure you stop that bleeding before it becomes a big issue.

Ricky Baez  42:54

So if you are a business leader, a business owner who is thinking about them, and somebody comes on board, you know, really start to build a relationship with that employee.

Ricky Baez  43:04
And I know that’s hard to do when you have hundreds of employees, right, but the person who’s going to be the direct manager of that employee, starts building a relationship, not when they start work.

Ricky Baez  43:13
Not when they do orientation when they start applying for the position, that in my opinion, that’s when onboarding starts when they apply. And when they apply, you build that relationship, you get to understand why they left their previous job, they’re not going to tell you that at first, right?

Ricky Baez  43:29
But after some time trying to build that relationship, they’re going to start giving you clues as to why they left. Keep that in the back of your mind.

Ricky Baez  43:35
Because of the reason they left their previous job thirst and start manifesting in the current job, they’re going to leave you, they’re going leave you, right?

Ricky Baez  43:44
So think about that.

Ricky Baez  43:47
Understand that and try to figure out a way how to make that person feel more welcome than normal. That way, they don’t leave you.

Ricky Baez  43:53
Now, if you got to pull out, like a trick a rabbit out of a hat and bring the circus ponies out there, you may have to redo the whole thing, right?

Ricky Baez  44:02
Because that’s not fair for you to do that for one employee and not the others, right, something wrong with the system.

Ricky Baez  44:06
And from that perspective, for everybody listening, just make sure when people come on board, fully understand what their value and what they left, and hopefully you will replicate that and you save them from leaving you in the future.

Pete Newsome  44:19
Well, you know, as you’re talking, I’m thinking of a complimentary episode.

Pete Newsome  44:24
And maybe what we should do next week is talk about counteroffers because that is the predecessor of this where, when someone is deciding to leave doing an exit interview, and really understanding why, as you alluded to earlier, I want to know why they’re leaving.

Pete Newsome  44:43
I wonder why they’re coming back but I want to capture as much information as I can on their way out the door, which should play a big part, is the point you’re making earlier in whether we consider bringing them back in.

Pete Newsome  44:57
But that counteroffer may be the game changer in between these two things. So let’s talk about that next week.

Ricky Baez  45:05
That’s my favorite subject. I’m going to stay quiet because I don’t want to give anything away.

Pete Newsome  45:09
We will know Ricky will be ready to explode up. I don’t know what you’re going to say. So I want to hear it live.

Ricky Baez  45:17
Does that make you nervous? Is that good? Like, oh, God, what is going to say now?

Pete Newsome  45:21
In general? Or you in particular? You in particular may be in general, no.

Ricky Baez  45:31
I love it.

Pete Newsome  45:32
So in conclusion, I don’t know that we reached one.

Ricky Baez  45:37
I think we did.

Pete Newsome  45:39
Did we?

Pete Newsome  45:39
I think so. The answer is definitively It depends.

Ricky Baez  45:44
Definite A, definite B? Yeah, maybe C’s.

Pete Newsome  45:49
Assuming, like they exited stage left in a right manner?

Ricky Baez  45:55
That is correct.

Pete Newsome  45:56
That has to be number one, right?

Pete Newsome  46:01
Yeah, I think I think it’d be it’d be crazy not to if you if they were good when they left and as you suggested, which is such a good idea and important in this, you go through all the conversations that you would, with this person off the street there had to get it in one more time, then, you know, and you have no reason to think you wouldn’t like them as much as you did before.

Pete Newsome  46:22
And they can’t add to wouldn’t add the value that they did before then, by all means, you know, don’t be foolish. Bring them back and everyone wins.

Ricky Baez  46:34
That’s right and do your due diligence, right?

Ricky Baez  46:36
Just because you know them doesn’t mean they get to bypass everything because you want to, you don’t know what happened.

Ricky Baez  46:41
Now, if it’s been a couple of weeks. I mean, what happened there? But Is it a couple of years? A lot can happen in a few years, right? So it’d be a good idea for you to come back, take them to Chili’s or something.

Ricky Baez  46:53
That’s what I do.

Ricky Baez  46:54
Typically Chili’s for any of you that’s why I gain so much weight, man. We’ll be having conversations at a restaurant fast food by the way.

Pete Newsome  47:00
Way too many chips and unlimited queso.

Ricky Baez  47:04
And baby back ribs or that too.

Pete Newsome  47:08
Alright, man. Well, let’s, let’s wrap this up and say that, you know, consider all the options. Hopefully, this has been helpful.

Pete Newsome  47:16
As always, we would love to hear any feedback that you have. So please email us at hirecalling@4cornerresources.com

Pete Newsome  47:24
We’d love to hear from you. And the link and contact information will be in the show notes. So if you haven’t already, subscribe and rate us five stars would be great, right? That’s the only rating we want.

Ricky Baez  47:34
Anything below five stars just does not exist. Just do five stars and you’re good.

Pete Newsome  47:39
And thanks. Have a great rest of your day.

Ricky Baez  47:41
Thank you, folks. Have a good one. Good night.