should I re-hire an employee who left after five months?

A reader writes:

We just had an employee leave after only five months in his position because another company he had applied to last year reached back out and offered him a much higher salary. He left on good terms, we are still in touch, and there is no ill will on either end.

However, he has indicated that there is a major gap between what he was led to believe his new company would be and his experience there so far as an employee, and it sounds like he might leave soon due to frustrations with the company culture.

We enjoyed working with him and he did his job well overall (albeit with some areas for growth around meeting deadlines, reliability, etc.), but I am wary of rehiring him if he leaves his new job soon because I would be concerned that he might leave our company fairly quickly again as well. Is that a good reason not to rehire someone who I like, or am I being overly cautious here?

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them).

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

• Our meeting topics are vague and never have agendas
• Finally meeting my coworkers face-to-face

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