Why ‘boomerang employees’ are returning to old jobs

Job platform Seek reported 41 per cent more job ads in February 2022 than February 2021, but applications per job ad were down, so it’s not surprising that employers are now actively reaching out to their alumni to fill critical staff gaps.

“We’ve had about 160 people join the team in the past 12 months and at least 10 per cent are boomerang,” says Tristan Sternson, chief executive of digital and tech services firm ARQ.

“If someone leaves and comes back – usually after two years – they’re going to have [new] experiences that we can learn from, and that makes us a better organisation.”

The boomerang bonus

While the benefits of boomerangs for employers is obvious – you hire people who already have IP and can hit the ground running – there can be great benefits for employees too.

Take Melbourne copywriter Kate Merryweather, who just re-joined The Barrington Centre psychology group this year, some 20 years after she resigned to build her career as a freelancer.

“It’s much easier to start as a boomerang employee – I already know my boss’s working style and she knows mine, so you fast forward that initial three months of employment, feeling your way around,” she says.

“If someone leaves and comes back – usually after two years – they’re going to have [new] experiences that we can learn from, and that makes us a better organisation.”

“The business has changed in 25 years but [my boss] is exactly the same as she was years ago. I’m just as enthusiastic as I was back then, but I have more skills to offer now.”

Lawyer Joshua Elloy returned to LegalVision in 2021, two years after leaving to explore an enticing corporate opportunity, and says the beauty of being a boomerang employee is that you can be clear about the kind of role you want and what you can offer the company on return.

In his case, he was able to use his return to negotiate a part-time remote role to enable him to work from Newcastle on the NSW north coast and continue his parallel career passion, helicopter rescues.

“The first time I worked there, I’d been in operations and sales management, but the second time I wanted to go directly into a legal team and build my legal skills,” he says.

“It felt like a weight off my shoulders to be going back. If anything COVID has taught us, it’s that there is more than one way to achieve your career goals.”

And it’s not just employees who are flirting with old workplace flames. For Delia Timms, COVID prompted her to buy back findababysitter.com, a business she had sold 10 years ago.

After spending the COVID years running a co-working space that was unsurprisingly challenging during Melbourne’s lengthy work-from-home orders, she was thrilled to step back into a digital business with fewer fixed overheads – but she quickly realised how flexible boomerang-ers have to be.

“The old job or business won’t be the same – even if the actual job hasn’t changed a lot, the customers have changed or you’ve changed and that brings new aspects to the role,” she says.

“That means new ideas, new things to learn, new ways of working – it can be energising to return to an old job.”

Should you go back?

If you’ve had an old boss tap you on the shoulder, Calder suggests you try to ignore any flattery you feel and think rationally.

“Do your due diligence – what were the reasons you originally left?” she asks.

“Are they still there or do you recognise [why you made] the decision to leave? [Are you] turning a blind eye to what you don’t want to see? Perhaps the answer isn’t to return, but simply to find the right job.”

As for managers, Calder says the take-home message of the boomerang era is to work hard to retain your staff in the first place.

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“Retention provides psychological security for your team; gives customers a better experience (through increased knowledge and experience levels) and your cost of training decreases,” she says.

“Also, resignations can be contagious [so] conduct ‘temperature checks’ with your team, even the ones you think are the most secure and loyal – everyone is being approached in this market.”

Perhaps the most important reminder for us all in this period of constant career shuffling is to never burn bridges.

“People understand these things happen – if you [resign] in a personal way and have a conversation then they’ll keep the doors open if you want to come back,” Sternson says.

“There’s nothing worse than someone sending you an email [to resign] – it’s like breaking up with someone over a text message; it’s not the right thing to do.”

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