Employees jumping ship, but many want to climb back on board

by Tim Gould

Employees may be leaving jobs at historically high rates, but there’s a silver lining: A big bunch of them come back to their old employers.  

That’s the word from a new survey from national staffing company Spherion. About 1,000 full- and part-time workers took part in the research, and nearly one in three (29%) said they’ve returned to a previous employer after leaving for some time. An additional 41% said they were open to being a similar “boomerang” employee.

Why are so many workers open to the idea of returning to a company they once left? Salary was the biggest motivator, but the “the feeling of being wanted” came in second, the survey said.

Sixteen percent of workers said they would consider going back to a previous employer if a former manager or colleague expressed interest in having them do so.  An equal number indicated that they never wanted to leave their previous company in the first place, with non-work factors necessitating the move.

And it doesn’t look like the former employers need to make the initial overture. More than half (55%) of workers said it is their responsibility to initiate conversation about making a return, versus only 28% who believe a previous colleague should reach out to them.

The flip side: More than one in three (35%) workers would not consider going back, feeling that such a move would either be a step back in their career (27%) or the company culture was not the right fit the first time (19%).

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