The first port of call of most of these firms is their old employees. This has led to a rise in boomerang placements — where employees return to their old jobs within a short span of leaving it, usually within two years.
The value of a boomerang employee is much higher these days than that of a lateral recruit. “Boomerangs are ready to deliver within a week of rejoining.”
Life seems to have come full circle for Sandeep Saxena, and that too in seven months. On December 1, the 28-year-old will join a Bengaluru-based food tech venture as a data analyst in its Gurgaon office. The last seven months have not been easy. He lost his job in May and was forced to move to a cheaper house in June as he could not afford the rent.
He also had to dip into his hard-earned savings to meet all the expenses. That was when his old office called him asking if he would be interested in rejoining. The same people who had handed him a pink slip now wanted to give him an appointment letter. Saxena decided to boomerang.
With the economy showing some signs of a revival, companies that had laid off staff to survive the crushing Covid times are now looking to hire again. The first port of call of most of these firms is their old employees. This has led to a rise in boomerang placements — where employees return to their old jobs within a short span of leaving it, usually within two years.
Of course, it helps that some automobile, lifestyle, electronic and ecommerce ventures are reporting greater sales, customers are returning, stock markets are hitting new highs and global analysts like Moody’s are changing the country’s growth outlook from negative to positive. All this has led to a positive sentiment in the market, and hence the hiring.
The food tech startup that Saxena will rejoin didn’t want to disclose its identity. “We don’t want to raise expectations among others who were asked to go. While we are happy to rehire some, accelerated digitisation across functions has resulted in a need for fewer hands,” says Saxena’s employer.
But Makemytrip.com, Vista Homes, and several companies in F&B, retail, financial services and aviation have confirmed they are hiring at least some of the people they had fired after April, when the entire country was under lockdown.
Jyoti Bowen Nath, managing partner of headhunter Claricent Partners, says, “These are uncertain times and companies prefer people who are aware of values, culture and are open to hiring employees who left on good terms.” Almost 60% of the companies looking for talent prefer boomerang hiring as businesses reopen, she says.
In April-June, Makemytrip.com had to let go of almost 350 employees as it cut back on expenses. Now, as travel is showing signs of revival, the portal has hired back 20 who had to leave due to the pandemic. It also hired 35 others for various functions.
The Nasdaq-listed company has two experts in its 45-people HR team to specifically look at boomerang placements. Makemytrip assigns a code to employees who leave the company or are asked to quit: Code 1 are those who can be hired later; code 2 can be considered after due diligence and code 3 cannot be rehired. Boomerang employees are mostly part of the first pool. Yuvaraj Srivastava, chief human resources officer, Makemytrip, says, “The success rate is 100% for boomerang employees. In the case of lateral hires (from other companies), 25% might turn out to be average performers.”
That is because former employees are familiar with what to do and hit the ground running. This can be a great asset in Covid times where companies don’t have the resources to train people, or the luxury of waiting for months as fresh hires figure out how the company works. Besides it also saves costs to call up an employee whose details are available in the company’s database rather than going through a lengthy process of searching and hiring fresh talent.
Vista Rooms, which manages 400 properties across India, saw 40 employees boomerang after business picked up in the last one month.
This has saved them at least 40 months of wages that would have been spent if a headhunter was engaged. Amit Damani, cofounder of Vista Rooms, says, “With the lockdown, business came to almost zilch. Decision to lay off was taken not due to individual performance but because the economy crashed. We opted to hire former staff as they know the core values of the company.”
Founded in 2015, Vista Rooms had 200 employees at the beginning of the year and was all set for expansion when Covid hit. This forced the company to lay off half the team. Now it has 140 staff, with 40 boomerangs hired at the earlier salary.
TeamLease has seen the trend of hiring boomerang employees pick up in F&B, lifestyle retail, financial services and to some extent in hospitality. Rituparna Chakraborty, a senior vice-president at the staffing company, says, “On resumption of business, the tendency is to reach out to employees who were laid off.”
Nath of Claricent Partners says, “It is also a great talent retention tool. Boomerang workers make wonderful brand ambassadors and are a strong endorsement for the organisation they come back to.” They are also likely to stay longer than the lateral hires as they understand the company is willing to open doors.
Probably that is why Joel Paul, GM India of RiseSmart, finds that the value of a boomerang employee is much higher these days than that of a lateral recruit. “Boomerangs are ready to deliver within a week of rejoining.”
While times are looking up for at least some who were handed pink slips just six months ago, few boomerangs have had to make do with shortened contracts— from at least 11 months earlier to just three months now — as businesses remain uncertain about the outlook.
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