Hello again: Managing talent with boomerang employees

Abstract Boomerang employees—previous employees who return to an organization after an absence—offer unique value in the talent pool, representing external employees with internal job experience. Utilizing a sample from a professional services firm in the United States, we draw from the literature on talent management and renegotiated psychological contracts to compare the compensation, satisfaction, commitment, and performance of boomerangs to similar employees who never left the firm. We find that reentry yields improvements in compensation, satisfaction, and organizational commitment for boomerangs relative to matched internal employees. Archival analysis of hours worked reveals that boomerangs spend significantly more hours on extra‐role projects rather than in‐role billable client hours. Boomerang performance is, however, on par with that of matched internal employees who never left the firm. Implications for adopting a boomerang talent management strategy and the renegotiation of disrupted psychological contracts are discussed.