Your Best Next Hire May Be A Rehire
The grass isn’t always greener.
15% of French Covid resigners would have returned to their previous employer. While this phenomenon of “boomerang employees” is not entirely new, it is now more prevalent. According to human resources experts, one of the benefits of this practice is that these workers can be "less risky" than new hires. It's also less expensive.
As companies continue to struggle to fill open roles, former employees represent a potentially untapped pool of talent. While no organization plans for a valuable employee to exit, it can be incredibly beneficial — for the company as well as the employee — when they return after some time away.
According to a Morning Consult study, two out of three French employees (63%) who left their jobs during the pandemic worldwide now regret their former situation.
The profiles of boomerang employees are diverse, particularly in terms of the reason they left their jobs. Among other things, the Randstad Global Report shows that 32% of employees leave their job because of a bad relationship with their manager or colleagues. The vast majority of boomerang employees are high performers who have left to gain new experience, and decide to return to use their new skills for the benefit of their former employer.
In today’s competitive labor market, returning employees can be invaluable hires.
Those who have boomeranged back into the organization tend to ramp up much faster than new hires. If they’re returning to the same position, they’re well aware of what their role entails, though they may need to learn about changes to work patterns implemented since they left the organization. If they’re being hired for a different role, their learning curve is still far lower than a new hire’s because of their knowledge of the company, making the transition easier from the start.
Boomerang employees are typically more satisfied and more committed than external hires. Because of this, they also perform at higher levels than their peers, secure better performance reviews compared with new hires, and are more likely to be promoted than non-boomerang peers. The most significant risk of rehiring boomerang employees is that they could leave the organization again, forcing it back to square one…Read here “The Benefits and Risks of Rehiring a Boomerang Employee” by Ben Laker, professor of leadership at the University of Reading’s Henley Business School.
Speak Up 📣 Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Employees Negotiate Salaries
Over the past few years, we haven’t negotiated salaries with future and current team members at 360Learning. Instead, we’ve used carefully calculated salary bands for each job since 2019.
That may have seemed questionable when retaining top talent was proving so tricky during the Great Resignation, but actually, it’s proven to be very beneficial and fundamental to our culture, ethos and values as a company. And we’re not the only ones; in the US, Buffer and Whole Foods have also taken steps to make salaries more transparent.
Salary transparency has long been one of our guiding principles. But it means so much more than putting a salary range on a job advert. Much like companies that tell you they’re remote-friendly without putting in any systems in place to actually support remote workers, there’s no point saying you’re transparent about salaries if, when a new employee joins, the process of performance reviews and salary raises becomes akin to cracking an ancient code. Instead, we’ve found that being upfront, accountable and having zero bias when it comes to a team member’s compensation is highly effective in retaining talent.
Too often in many startups, salary ranges are made to be broken. Maybe there’s an incredible new hire that needs a big wage or maybe there’s a manager that needs extra performance from an employee so holds the prospect of a raise over their head to get it. Not only does that make a mockery of the whole idea of salary bands in the first place, it can often lead to unethical practices and inequality between employees.
👉 read the rest of Nicholas Wagner’s Opinon, chief people and culture officer at 360Learning
Data 📊 Burnout Versus Malaria: Which Kills The Most?
Burnout is usually characterised through three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism, and job inefficacy. It disproportionately affects people service industries but has grown to an epidemic.
In Sep 2021, the WHO stated that approximately 750,000 people die every year from heart issues related to overwork. This represents more deaths than yearly malaria-related deaths. Burnout researcher Jennifer Moss even states that up to 2.8 million people die from burnout each year!
Burnout is a highly political issue. Too often, burnout is considered an individual problem. Individual burnout factors & solutions have actually gathered the most attention from research and organisations alike. The problem with such an approach is that is removes accountability from organisations, and stops them from addressing the root causes of burnout. What use is an extra week off if your employees come back to 80-hour work weeks?
To tackle burnout efficiently, organisations must work on six levers.
Workload: redistributing the workload more evenly across the organisation, hiring additionnal people will reduce exhaustion.
Control: giving workers more agency and control over their time and projects reduces symptoms of burnout.
Reward: fostering an organisation where people feel valued, for instance by encouraging positive feedback.
Discover the 3 other levers in Sarah's post from Teampact Ventures here ⬅️ (in 🇫🇷)
Trend 🌊 Racism Could Ruin The Metaverse
The tech industry’s disappointing track record on issues of diversity could have serious consequences when the metaverse comes along.
For years, tens of millions of people of color have endured unwelcome experiences on social media platforms built by mostly white and male tech CEOS, including harassment and hate speech. Many users have also had their contributions regularly ignored or copied without attribution. If those issues follow users into the metaverse, a concept championed largely by those same mostly white and male tech CEOs, today’s online abuse could become significantly more visceral and damaging.
The metaverse isn’t off to a great start. Studies of virtual world gaming platforms, like VRChat, have found evidence of minors being regularly exposed to racist, violent language and harassment in the virtual worlds. Those types of experiences can be full-on assaults to users’ mental health.
News 🗞 SpaceX Fires Workers That Criticized Musk
SpaceX, founded 20 years ago, fired some employees involved in a letter that criticized Elon Musk and the way the company applies internal rules.
SpaceX's letter, titled "Open Letter to SpaceX Executives" calls Mr. Musk a "distraction and embarrassment" to the company he founded. In a list of three demands, it says that "SpaceX must quickly and explicitly separate itself from Elon's personal brand," "hold all executives equally accountable for making SpaceX a great place to work for everyone," and "consistently define and respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior."
The reaction of Space X was not long in coming. Crisis meeting? An open forum to talk with the 400 signatories of the letter? Not exactly... Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president, described the letter as a "distraction" too... "The letter, the solicitations and the whole process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry that the letter caused them to sign something that did not reflect their views”. The private rocket company fired at least five employees... 🤮
It's also getting hot at Coinbase, the employees are targeting the top executives.
The Nugget 🍪 How To Create A Winning Corporate Culture
Your actions as a founder have a direct impact on your entire company, whether consciously or not. So even if you think your culture doesn't deserve considerable attention, it's a critical component of your business that you can't ignore.
What do you typically recognize as a positive company culture?*
- Low turnover
- Opportunities for growth
- Transparent and responsive management
- Recognition of successes and achievements
- Healthy work/life balance
* if these criteria are bad or non-existent, no doubt you have a toxic culture... 😬