According to research by a leading HR think-tank, as many as four out of every five leavers would consider working for their employers again. But few organisations have established effective systems for tracking and bringing back the best people. That’s the message from the Ochre House Network think-tank, which is made up of over 650 major employers including GE, Kimberley-Clark, Lilly, Microsoft and United Biscuits.
At its latest meeting the think-tank concluded that an employee’s resignation and departure should be regarded as a natural and possibly temporary process rather than as a cut-off point. Organisations should be thinking in what were described as ‘Hotel California’ terms – “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Delegates cited Johnson & Johnson’s ‘boomerang’ scheme and Astra Zeneca’s open door policy as prime examples of this thinking put into practice.
“Too many employers seem to see resignation as the end rather than the beginning,” says Ochre House director and think-tank leader, Helena Parry. “However it’s much more realistic and productive to accept that it’s natural for the best people to explore new career opportunities, but can often be enticed back through ‘keep in touch’ programmes, perhaps even more skilled and able than when they left. The key to success seems to lie in a clear allocation of responsibility for such programmes and a commitment to regular, relevant, but nor intrusive contact. But so far, few companies have succeeded in building this elastic talent pipeline.”
A new talent pool
Parry went on to explain to The People Bulletin that one or two decades ago, you had jobs for life, if people left it was a big shock and you wouldn’t let them back in the door after an act of such disloyalty. This is still the case in some German companies, but the rest of Europe is waking up to the reality that the average Generation Y employee will hold a job for an average of two to three years.
“When I look at all the different recruitment channels – I see anyone working for competitors as an enormous talent pool for employers and something you cannot disregard. If you do, you are missing out”, says Parry. Her view is that the more open you are about keeping the door open, the richer a company you will be in the long term as these people come back with new ideas.
Erika Berger and Millennium
She observes there is a difference between Scandinavia and the UK on this one (Parry is from Sweden but has lived and worked in the UK for some years). “When I left Sweden, it was more about jobs for life, but now people are changing jobs more and employers have become more talent-centric.” She thought the story in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest where Erika Berger leaves Millennium to be editor-in-chief at Sweden's largest daily paper, the fictional Svenska Morgon-Posten and eventually returns a good example of all these trends being played out in a highly networked society.
How it works
Some companies are looking at their talent strategy in a different way and although not all are like Johnson & Johnson who actively encourage individuals to leave, get some new experiences and return, they are setting up alumni programmes to keep in touch with ex employees and organising secondments and job-swapping schemes. Parry noted that a number of high profile organisations had made undergone widespread redundancy programmes in the recession, only to hire the same employees back six months later once the economy had picked up (she wasn’t telling us which ones).
www.ochrehouse.com