Half of Japanese employers willing to rehire former employees

More than half of employers in Japan are willing to accept a returning employee despite the alumni pool being their least likely choice to look for talent.

This is according to the latest Recruit Holdings report that surveyed 2,761 HR managers in organisations with over 30 employees, Nippon reported.

According to the survey, 55.5% of the respondents are willing to hire former employees who had either retired or left the organisation.

This is despite the organisation's alumni network being among the least used methods (12.3%) to recruit employees, according to the surveyed HR professionals.

The most utilised methods to recruit staff include the Japanese government's employment service "Hello Work" (51.1%) and the company website (46.3%). Other methods include:

• Employment agencies
• Job advertisements
• Career-change events
• Internships
• Employee referral
• Direct recruitment
• Headhunting
• Social media

Success rate

Meanwhile, the report found that 42.9% of employers who tapped their alumni pool were either "fully" or "somewhat" successful in finding the needed number of employees.

Another 34.5% who used corporate alumni recruitment added that their level of human resources was either "fully" or "somewhat" adequate.

According to the survey, hiring former staff can reap positive outcomes because of the better match between the employee and the job due to the latter's understanding of the company and corporate culture.

A former employee also introduces new skills and perspectives from different environments after returning and are able to get up and running right away because they understand internal relations, the survey said as reported by Nippon.

Welcoming former staff

Japan's willingness to accept returning staff - or the so-called "boomerang" employees - has been a growing trend across other places in Asia.

In Singapore, more than 90% of employers said in Robert Walters research that they are open to reconsidering boomerang staff for suitable positions.

Similarly, 90% of managers in the Philippines also said they are willing to re-hire former employees, Business World reported.

Toby Fowlston, CEO of Robert Walters, said rehiring boomerang employees could "be a solution to skills shortage."

"This is talent that can hit the ground running – they have already been inducted into your business, they will be familiar with processes, and have a previous vested interest in the brand – all qualities which can take years to instil in a new employee," the CEO said.