Summary

A high-performing employee leaves voluntarily, makes complaints about her manager during the exit interview, and those complaints are noted informally but never investigated. 

Eighteen months later, she applies to come back—to the same manager's team. Now HR is stuck: rehiring her means placing her back under the manager she complained about, but not hiring her could look retaliatory for protected complaints. 

In this episode of HR Voices, host Rebecca Taylor sits down with Jill Gawrych, CHRO at Springs Window Fashions, to work through this fabricated-but-very-real scenario about the boomerang employee problem. Jill brings a clear-eyed, action-oriented approach to what is genuinely a no-win situation with risk in every direction. She walks through who to talk to first (your HR team, then the manager—carefully), why you have to pause the hiring process before anyone takes unsanctioned action, and how to handle the investigation that should have happened 18 months ago. 

She and Rebecca also get into the difference between bad leadership and actual misconduct, why memory makes 18-month-old complaints nearly impossible to investigate cleanly, and the uncomfortable reality that once you've seen undocumented notes, you no longer have plausible deniability. If you've ever dealt with a boomerang hire, an uninvestigated exit interview complaint, or just the daily reality of every decision in HR carrying risk, this conversation will sharpen how you think about it.

Timestamps

• 01:06 The scenario: the boomerang employee problem
• 02:28 What stands out as most risky: risk in every direction
• 04:46 Who to talk to first: HR team, then the manager—carefully
• 07:19 What about the candidate? When and how to have that conversation
• 09:00 Assumptions to avoid: don't assume the manager was wrong or the employee was right
• 12:05 The risk of not rehiring versus the risk of rehiring into a bad situation
• 15:01 Memory, documentation, and plausible deniability after 18 months
• 19:55 Moving fast enough to maintain control without tripping over yourself

Takeaways

• Investigate every exit interview complaint, even from someone who's leaving—once it's written down, it's documented whether you meant it to be or not
• Pause the hiring process immediately so nobody takes action before you've assessed the situation
• Talk to the manager without revealing the complaint first; understand the "why" behind the rehire before coloring the conversation
• Check whether other complaints or turnover patterns exist on that manager's team before drawing conclusions
• Consult employment counsel before talking to the candidate—there are too many directions this can go
• Treat boomerang candidates like any other candidate: check their exit documentation, talk to former colleagues, and don't assume hiring them back is the easy win

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-gawrych-hr-professional/

Company website: https://www.springswindowfashions.com

Sponsor

AllVoices brings all your employee relations work together in one place. No more jumping between spreadsheets, emails, and legacy systems, just one place to document and manage reports, cases, investigations, and performance conversations. It helps you run a more consistent process, takes busywork off your plate with AI, and makes it easier to spot trends early, so you can work proactively, not just put out fires.

See a demo at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.allvoices.co/

• (01:06) - The scenario: the boomerang employee problem