Manager insists on recruiting externally

Question

We have a well liked and respected colleague who left the team and would like to come back. The rest of the team would welcome the return of their skillset but our manager has apparently told them that they will not be able to return, despite every other person on the team saying they would like the person to return.

Instead said manager wants to recruit for the position externally - an idea we do not like as the person who wants to return has unparalleled domain expertise gained through years of experience in this niche company.

If we do hire externally we would prefer to split the role into component competencies, however we would still miss their expertise.

Said colleague did some consulting for us recently and the manager made it very clear (by being rude and visibly irate) that they did not approve.

How do we communicate our position in a non-antagonistic way?

Answer 1

Just to offer an alternative theory to the other answers:

What you should do is almost entirely contingent on your company culture and the practices established by your companies HR for hiring. I do know of software companies where teams are considered sacred (if you will) and the team has the final say on all hiring and firing. Granted, the teams are generally well established, well organized and require very little supervision. That's why they are allowed that responsibility and can basically override their boss on team building decisions.

If your workplace functions in that way, and if your team is a well established team, then you might consider having an informal (off the record) chat with HR regarding the situation. If there are established guidelines for hiring that say "the team will have a say in who is hired and who is fired" then you may have some grounds for filing a formal objection.

But, be very careful doing this, I can't imagine your boss will take it very well. Even if the objection were successful, and you were allowed to hire this person, the working environment could become pretty nasty if your boss and one of your co-workers despise each other. And you won't look so great either (in your bosses eyes) for forcing the issue and bringing them on to your team.

If, though, your company culture is that the boss is the boss and has the final say in all hiring and firing, then you are simply at an impasse. You could protest, certainly, but I'd only recommend protesting if you really feel that this is something worth losing your job over or, at very least, forever altering how your boss views you for the worse. If you have other job options though, and feel you could leave this job easily, and you feel very very strongly about this then, well, perhaps you could speak up.

Just understand, you may be putting your job, as well as the jobs of your co-workers, on the line by doing something like that. At that point you must ask yourself, "is it really worth all of that risk to try and force this person that my boss dislikes onto the team."

Answer 2

The manager has made clear that they do not consider your friend a viable candidate at this time. Unfortunately, your opinion does not matter; this decision is the manager's responsibility, not yours. If two individuals do not play well together, they do not belong in the same department or in a situation where one is managing the other.

The best thing you can do, frankly, is leave this alone and let the manager discover whether this individual is as unique as you claim. If they are, that may be an argument for reconsidering the decision.... But if you push, the manager may resist more strongly.

Or suggest to your friend that they try interviewing with another department, if that makes sense.

There is nothing else you can do short of trying to get your manager reassigned, which I emphatically do not recommend attempting.

Answer 3

As others have stated, you should do your best to stay out of it. The manager is most likely already aware of how certain team members, including you, feel about this particular ex-colleague. If the manager is interested in your take on the matter, he will reach out to you.

In the end, if he/she decides not to bring back this former employee, he must have his or her reasons, some of which may relate to past events, interactions or performance problems that you and your co-workers were not necessarily privy to.

Part of being successful in a job is maintaining a good trusting relationship and good communication with the manager. You can be the best individual performer and have the best personal relationships with your co-workers, but all unfortunately mean little if you have a shaky non-trusting relationship with your boss. If we are going to hold the manager accountable for the performance and development of the team, he or she has the right to build the team with people he/she can trust and relate to.

Answer 4

There are many things a manager might know about a person who has left that you do not. It is possible they offered to have him resign rather than be fired; it is possible he was quietly fired for cause. It is possible he was on a performance improvement plan and management was glad to see him go voluntarily before they got around to firing him. It is possible he burned some bridges when he left with some complaints about the manager. It is possible he had an affair with the manager's wife. You don't know.

All you know is the manager does not want to work with this person again. That should be enough for you to stop pushing it. There is a ZERO percent chance that he will rehire the person given what you described about his reaction. Pushing this can only make matters worse and will erode your relationship to the manager which is never in your best interests.

If the team resents this, then they need to get over it. If one of you objected to this person, I suspect that you would support that person's objections. The manager likely is obligated not to to explain why he objects to this person if it was from something that caused personnel issues in the past. So it looks more arbitrary to you. But it very well may not be.

Answer 5

Either you are putting your colleague on a pedestal, or your manager is incompetent, or malicious.

Options:

1. Dig deeper and find out why the manager is so set against this. Does he know something that you don't. If the manager is insecure, you will have to intepret his answers in light of this. Note that this will erode your own relationship with the manager.

2. Bypass the manager and go further up the hierarchy. The corporate reaction to this varies. In some loose hierarchies this is a standard way to get things running again. In others this will be seen as a betrayal of your present manager, and you are seen as a loose canon who doesn't work within the system. This may erode your career. This is more likely to succeed if most of the team feels as you do and is willing to support you. "He's making bad decisions. We want a different manager" is the TLDR of what you are saying up the chain.

3. Subvert your boss. This requires help by the entire team to make the manager look totally incompetent. This is hard to do without it reflecting back on you.