The practice of re-employment, otherwise known as rehiring, has been a common one in the industry for a long time now. Although rehiring the erstwhile employees appears relatively simple in nature, there are many legal, business and other organizational aspects which must be taken into account before decisions pertaining to the same are made and implemented. Thus, over the years, rehiring has become more and more driven by a well-measured and weighed HR policy framework. Such a policy framework becomes imminent as organizations of today are forced to become more transparent in their employment policies and practices. In addition, the shortage of talent and willingness of a candidate to rejoin poses a ticklish question of whether or not to rehire to the employer.

In the earlier days, if a company received an application for employment from a candidate who had earlier worked in the same establishment, pat came the reply from the Personnel Office stating that as a company policy, they would not consider such a request for re-employment. From this rigid policy stand, today, many companies have advanced to a stage where there are specific policy guidelines available for re-employment. Even employees are today aware about how to approach the companies in case they are seeking re-employment. In this long journey dominated by various changes at the workplace, the subject of re-employment or rehiring has undergone a metamorphosis of sort.

The decision to re-employ is somewhat paradoxical in nature. Rehire decisions are not a frequent phenomenon. Normally, recruiting means inducting `new blood' into an organization; this means adding new persons into the rank and file of the organization to meet its manpower needs for business and operations. However, at certain times, rehire decisions may come to surface for many reasons.

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