Poor performersLet’s look more closely at what the research shows about performance. My colleagues and I tracked the performance of employees in a large, professional-services firm in the U.S.
for five years and found, surprisingly, that rehired employees didn’t outperform similar employees who never left the firm, as measured by manager ratings.Similarly, research led by John Arnold, a professor at the University of Missouri, on a large retail employer in the U.S.
found that rehired employees performed no better or worse—as measured by annual performance reviews—than internal and external hires in the first year.
However, the rehired employees performed more poorly after the first year back. What’s more, these employees are more likely to.