Why Your Ex-Employees Matter

Many organisations stop engaging with ex-employees once they leave, and this seems to make sense. Why invest in an employee who has chosen to leave when time could be spent recruiting new employees or engaging with your current ones?

However, keeping the door open to former employees can be beneficial to your charity as well as the individual. What’s more, staying in touch with your ex-employees doesn’t have to be a huge commitment.

Here are three reasons why you should stay in touch with your past employees, and two low-budget ways to do it successfully.

Why should you stay in touch with ex-employees?

1. Former employees care about your cause

Whatever their reason for leaving, it’s easy to forget that former employees were once new recruits, excited at the prospect of working for your organisation. In the charity sector, employees often have a passion for the cause before applying for the job.

Even though the individual has left your charity, it doesn’t mean they’ve stopped caring about the work you do. In fact, the time they spent in your employment is more likely to have increased their alignment with your cause. This is because of their direct involvement in your work and their proximity to colleagues who have similar beliefs.

This makes your ex-employees perfect brand ambassadors. They have a vested interest in hearing about the latest news, campaigns and fundraising appeals from your charity. And because of this, they’ll be more likely to engage with content you send their way and share it with their networks. This is a great way to reach new audiences.

2. It can be useful for recruitment

Once an employee leaves you, they’re most likely to go on to work for an organisation in the same field. In the charity sector, this could mean working in a similar department for a charity with a similar cause.

Sharing job vacancies with your employee alumni network allows them to share the opportunities with their own contacts, thereby reaching a whole new audience of relevant potential candidates. What’s more, candidates who apply for a job through a referral are up to 6.6% more likely to get the job than organic candidates, due to them being more targeted and relevant for the role.

Being referred for a job by an ex-employee comes with other benefits too. The former employee can give a realistic account of what it was like to work for you. Through this, potential applicants get a feel for the culture and structure of the organisation, so they come with realistic expectations.

3. Ex-employees can be rehired

Employees leave an organisation for all kinds of reasons, but their last day may not be the end of the story. Research has shown that almost 30% of employees would love to go back to a former employer, and 40% are open to the idea of it. That’s a wide pool of talent to take advantage of. Since former employees have worked for you before, they already know your culture, how your charity runs and what to expect. They already know that they’ll be a good fit.

Plus, the period between leaving your organisation and re-joining won’t have been a vacuum. It might have allowed them to access training that you don’t currently have the budget for.

It also takes new employees an average of 4.8 months to reach full productivity. That’s a lot of time that could be saved by hiring a former employee who would be quicker at learning the ropes.

How do you stay in touch with ex-employees?

1. Keep your ex-employees engaged

There are many ways to keep former employees up to date with what’s going on at your charity that don’t sap too much time. How about creating a Facebook group for past employees where you share recent campaigns, any upcoming job vacancies and good news? Or you could create a monthly or quarterly newsletter.

Between one third and one half of company reviews on Glassdoor are from ex-employees. And organisations that have alumni programmes are more likely to receive positive reviews. If you show former employees that you still care about and support them, they’re more likely to reciprocate. So why not take the time to celebrate their accomplishments when they come up? An easy way to do this is to connect with them on LinkedIn. Then you can congratulate them on their milestones whenever they post them.

2. Invite former employees to be mentors

No matter the length of time they were in their former role, ex-employees no doubt left your charity with a lot of sector-specific expertise as well as knowledge that’s unique to your charity. New hires will have to learn this from scratch. Or will they?

Inviting a former employee to mentor a new hire provides a unique opportunity for both the mentor and the mentee to improve their skills and add to their CVs. Millennials in particular are keen for more mentoring opportunities, with 79% saying that they think mentoring is crucial to their career success.

Since employees who recently left will have the most up-to-date knowledge, they’ll make the most valuable mentors. They could add the experience to their CV, and new hires get up to speed faster. Former employees also have the benefit of having an outside perspective. They’re learning how things are done at other organisations outside of your charity. This means they have access to fresh ideas and resources that they can pass down to your new recruits.

Staying in touch with ex-employees doesn’t have to be a big commitment

Charities are often working with limited time and an even more limited budget. But staying in touch with your ex-employees doesn’t have to be a massive commitment. The potential benefits of growing your brand, and hiring and onboarding the best candidates as smoothly as possible, can make it more than worth the investment.

Post a job with ‘Apply by CV and cover letter (CharityJob Apply)’ and get free access to our end-to-end Applicant Tracking System (ATS) tools designed to improve applicant diversity. Our ATS allows you to filter CVs with keyword searches, communicate with candidates, evaluate applications and helps remove unconscious bias from your recruitment process.

We offer four job ad packages to suit your needs and budget. Choosing the right package is important because it determines the pool size, type, and quality of candidates your ad will reach.

If you’re not sure which is right for your non-profit organisation, contact us for personalised advice. Give us a call on 020 8939 8430, or email us at info@charityjob.co.uk

This post was originally published in 2022 and has been updated to ensure relevance and to reflect the current recruitment experience.