How to rehire redundant employees without the catches…

People Management featured an article within their Law At Work section on 27 August 2009 about rehiring redundant employees. The article was very interesting calling the employees “boomerang employees” and stating that many US companies are already rehiring employees previously made redundant. The article is quite positive about the benefits of doing such practices and that it works in the businesses favour during recessions through various quotes such as “Rehiring ex-staff can be a quick and sensible fix. They know the business, have the right skills and usually require only a basic refresher course to get back up to speed.” It all sounds promising but I think it is a horrible mistake to think this, as any future retention scheme will be very difficult to sell to the employees.

The employees will have a bad view of the company affecting the culture, they know that the company will hire and fire as needed for short term gains. The cost of making someone redundant and then hire them again will mean that the business has spent quite a bit of money when it might of been able to better plan its HR resources ; save time, money and giving employees a positive image of the employer.

Planning a retention strategy is not just about the short term, when devising schemes and planning other aspects of HR practices retention should always be in the back of the employers minds to make sure it does not get neglected and lead to a negative impacted on the business.