Not hiring ex-employees?

Rajiv Sabharwal was a senior manager with ICICI Bank but he left the bank in 2008 and joined Sequoia Capital as its executive director. But after a year, he returned back to ICICI Bank. Well, if he had tried to do that now, he probably would not have been taken back. In an internal communication to its HR, the bank has stated that it will not hire ex-employees. This is completely bizarre given that new banks are going to come up soon and there is surely going to be a dearth of talent in the banking sector.

IT companies are well know for hiring ex-employees as they rightly feel that ex-employees are familiar with the work culture and so is the management with their style of working so it makes the initial “teaming” very easy.  These ex-employees also require lesser time on training and thus it is a saving of sorts for the company.

Banking remains a hot spot with employees. ICICI Bank, for its flagship Probationary Officer (PO) programme received 2,50,000 applications for 2,400 seats.  And the largest bank of India, SBI received an overwhelming 1.7 million applications for 1,500 vacancies.  Maybe ICICI is looking at nurturing new talent; that’s a good deed but to have already trained employees, especially when talent is low to come by, this rule of not hiring ex-employees seems retrograde. .  Not hiring underperforming and last ex-employees is fine but will it let go of talented ones too?