NEWS & INSIGHT
UNDERSTANDING THE RISE OF BOOMERANG EMPLOYEES
SCHOOL: University College London (UCL) School of Management COUNTRY: UK
More than a quarter of all new hires in the past 36 months are ‘boomerang employees’ – in other words, people who worked at that organisation previously – according to new research led by UCL School of Management associate professor Anthony Klotz. The eye-catching statistic stems from an analysis of more than three million employee records across 120 organisations between 2019 and 2022. As well as signalling a growing trend, the research identifies who is most likely to boomerang, when and why. The findings suggest that employees who jump back to their former employers are most likely to be at managerial level, after being enticed to return by higher-paying roles. Indeed, boomerang employees in the study received an average pay raise of 25 per cent from their former employers relative to their salaries at the time of their departure. Those who stayed with a single employer received an average salary increase of just four per cent in the same time period. Rehires were also found to be more common in some industries than others, representing an average of 33 per cent among all new hires in retail,
compared to 25 per cent in manufacturing and 14 per cent in tech. Across all industries, more than three quarters of boomerang employees had made the move back within 16 months of starting their new job. This suggests, according to the researchers, that a common reason for boomerangs is the new organisation’s failure to live up to employees’ expectations, dubbed a violation of their ‘psychological contract’. Having strong social ties with former colleagues also played a role in employees opting to return. For organisations who want to avoid losing new employees in this way, the study recommends providing a realistic picture of a new hire’s role and team during the hiring process to ensure expectations are not misaligned. Conversely, for organisations looking to win back former employees, the advice is to check in with those who leave a year after their departure – the crucial juncture in potential boomerangs’ decision-making process. “Ultimately, the rise of the boomerang employee can represent a major threat, or a major opportunity. It’s up to today’s employers to minimise the former while capitalising on the latter,” concluded Klotz and his co-authors in an article for Harvard Business Review . TBD
Ambition | MAY 2023 | 9
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