If you haven’t limited summer travel due to inflation, then you’ve probably stopped buying inessential goods or even cut out your daily Starbucks. (Those last two sound redundant, but coffee is essential for some of us!)

Fortunately, Lowe’s employees will get some relief. The home-improvement retailer is giving $55 million in bonuses to its 300,000 hourly workers. “These associates have the most important job in our company and we deeply appreciate everything they do,” said CEO Martin R. Ellison in a statement.

Even better, the employees will receive a limited-time 20% discount on Lowe’s household and cleaning merchandise. No word on whether this includes their fine selection of Starbucks essentials.

Boomerang employees: Should you take them back?

Psychologist: How to engage a team in trying times.

Ted Lasso: Why internal hiring is a winning play.

Livin’ the dream: From marketing VP to organic spice seller.

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During the Great Resignation, millions of employees left their jobs in hopes of better pay, better benefits, and better [fill in the blank]. But for some of them, the grass on the other side was brown and patchy.

With companies rescinding job offers lately, what should you do if an ex-employee comes crawling back like a romantic partner who made an oopsie on Tinder? “Fool me once,” right…?

Actually, taking a job elsewhere isn’t an unforgivable betrayal. Nearly 5% of all new hires in 2021 were so-called boomerang workers, according to Linkedin. This recycling trend can have benefits for employers — so here’s why you might want to take a peek at your past work relationships. 

They’ve Picked Up New Skills

When one of your workers leaves for another company, they typically gain a fresh perspective and new knowledge. Why not use the competition’s playbook to your advantage?

You Don’t Need to Train Them

Along with the new comes the old. A former employee already understands your processes, culture, and where to find the supply closet. This means less time spent onboarding; they can get directly back to work.

You Already Know Their Strengths

Sometimes a candidate sounds perfect during the job interview but, once hired, fails miserably. Good employees can be hard to come by, so if an ex-employee was a great fit and wants to flex their talents for you again, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting.

This is a good reason to create a positive exit experience for employees and emphasize that your door is always open if (ahem, *when*) they want to circle back around. That said, they might have unresolved issues with your management style — or resist changes that you made in their absence — so be sure to cover those bases first.

If you love an employee’s work, let ’em go; if they return, it was meant to be.

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Dr. Steven Rogelberg is Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte and former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

An engaged team is a resilient team. While engagement is always important, it’s especially the case when times are difficult, uncertain, and challenging (as this year is proving to be). Despite trying circumstances and fears of a recession, here are ways to keep morale up.

Identify Your Team’s Obstacles

Are you as efficient and streamlined as possible? With your team, pinpoint barriers to individual and collective success. Getting your own house together only helps to weather difficult environmental challenges.

Be Actively Supportive

Leading people well and thoughtfully is essential during trying times. Treat your team with respect, care, and fairness. Leverage 1:1 meetings to build relationships and sustain alignment.

Praise Publicly, Criticize Privately

Catch staff doing things right. Express gratitude frequently to keep your company culture as positive as it can be. Address emerging conflicts to prevent the development of a cutthroat atmosphere. If team members are competing in a counterproductive manner, celebrate collaboration instead.

Encourage Two-Way Communication

Hold periodic team debrief sessions. Ask the team to describe what’s working well (and what isn’t). Identify one or two adjustments to make immediately.

Be Optimistic, but Realistic

Lay out your hopes and goals, clearly. Frame success in tangible ways that inspire commitment and motivation. Trying times can become a great stage for you to enact principled and excellent leadership.

(Source: Apple TV+)

No matter whether you’re running a business or a soccer team, it’s difficult to find reliable talent — but you might already have it. With no guarantee that a new hire will be a good fit, it’s a good idea to look at internal hiring to fill your available spots.

Apple TV+’s feel-good, fan-favorite comedy Ted Lasso demonstrates this perfectly. Both Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed) are promoted from within Richmond FC. Because they know the team inside out, they make valuable contributions in key moments that lead to big wins. 

Internal hiring is faster, cheaper, and improves employee morale. No wonder 87% of millennials say career development is a top priority for them — or, should we say, a top “goooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllll”?

Meaghan Thomas had “worked hard,” she says, to become vice president of marketing at an international SEO and PR firm, but she no longer believed in her employer’s mission and was “left unfulfilled and exhausted…”

In 2019, after “cutting back and creating a plump savings buffer,” she left the corporate world behind and became co-owner of Pinch Spice Market in Louisville, Kentucky. Her “life partner” had founded the organic shop (“He’s an excellent ‘spice sommelier,’” Thomas tells b.) and she took on the operations side – “not once” regretting her decision to walk away from a stable office job.

“It’s super amazing to go on travel adventures and walk fields with the spice farmers who pour their hearts into their land,” Thomas says, adding, “We all hear at some point ‘you have to take the leap or you’ll never succeed.’ That’s true to a large extent, but I prefer to think about the leap more as a pole jump … That pole is whatever you need it to be to ease the stress of your big move.” 

Written by Skye Schooley, Dr. Steven Rogelberg, and Brian Hill. Comic by John McNamee.