homecoming after great resignation

Recruiters are calling this phenomenon ‘infant mortality’, in which newcomers realize they’re not the right fit and want to return to a familiar workplace. This type of reverse migration is taking place primarily in client-facing roles in the technology, startup and consumer industries.

“The importance of acquaintance is often unrecognized. When there is loan repayment, onboarding during Covid, no contact with colleagues, one looks for known faces,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of staffing firm TeamLease Services said.

He said that this trend is being observed in the junior to middle management segments where employees dial up their former offices and come back at the same pay or with a marginal increase.

The ‘great resignation’ was a term coined a few months ago, when employees, mainly in the tech and startup sectors, were flooded with offers to join bonuses and counteroffers. As India Inc tries to keep pace with accelerated digital adoption and cloud-based services, their need for experts in Java, JavaScript, Python and SQL remains unfulfilled.

But challenges have cropped up with rapid resignations and immediate hiring, in which an employee feels lost despite a 60-100% pay increase. Recruiters use the term ‘infant mortality’ to define people who leave their jobs within the first one to three months of joining. While some may move to a new firm, there is an increasing tendency to return to familiar territory.

“I tell it to go back to the roots. The tech and e-commerce sector has seen many cases where employees cannot join a new firm. This is especially the case with new recruits who are working remotely. and physical offices are not part of the workspace,” said Pashupati Sankaran, chief operating officer of recruitment firm CareerNet. Around 70% of the clients of the Bengaluru-based firm are in the tech and startup space.

According to a study by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), nearly 90% of CEOs expect their hiring this year to be the same or higher than in 2021, with digital talent making up half of the new workforce. In another study, Nasscom said 450,000 employees have been added so far this financial year.

Bringing back a former employee works well for a company, and the trend is more prominent in client-facing roles.

Nitin Sethi, Partner and CEO, Human Capital Solutions at consulting firm AON India, said, “The fact that they already know enough about the candidates on aspects like potential, culture fit, preparation for the role etc. It is an interesting one. is proposed.” Be it market roles, leadership recruitment, strategic initiatives or even at the middle and junior level – many companies are now tapping this segment,” he said.

This class of former employees is being seen across industries, but in some cases, reverse migration occurs when the new firm cannot sustain the huge salary.

“There are cases when employees have joined a startup and felt that the startup was not very sound financially. There are increasing incidents where candidates have fallen for promises of funding and ESOPs and later realized the folly. “They go back to their earlier employers,” said Guruprasad Srinivasan, Group CEO of Quess Corp.

However, given the hiring frenzy, one can opt for a new employer and bargain for another hike. This is done keeping in mind that the joining bonus will be refunded to the new employees if they leave the firm before a stipulated period. The former employer may not be able to offer a substantial increase but the other may.

“Not all are looking back at the newly recruited head to the previous employer. Full-stack engineers and cloud specialists are still in high demand and may find jobs in another firm. There are bidding wars between firms, but the bubble will last for at most 2 to 3 quarters,” said Supaul Chanda, vice-president, technology recruitment firm Experis (of ManpowerGroup).