Rehiring a former employee is simple, but following a few best practices will help ensure a smooth experience in both Bob and UK Payroll.
1. Rehire the employee in Bob
If you're using the Bob and UK Payroll integration, always navigate to HiBob & use Actions → Change work status → Rehire from the employee's profile.
Using the Rehire action within HiBob preserves the employee's lifecycle history while creating a new employment period and onboarding experience.
2. Choose the right New Hire flow
When starting the rehire process, select a New Hire flow that includes the Employee ID field in the Work section.
This is required for the employee to sync successfully to UK Payroll.
3. Give the employee a new Employee ID
In UK Payroll, a rehired employee is treated as a new starter, as they've already been reported to HMRC as a leaver and issued a P45.
Assign a new, unused (unused for this employee, or another employee) Employee ID to create their new payroll record.
4. Update the terminated employee's email address
Each employee in UK Payroll must have a unique email address.
Before rehiring, update the email address on the UK payroll terminated record to a placeholder or dummy email address so the employee can reuse their original email address on their new record.
5. Review payroll and employment details
Before running payroll, take a moment to check:
- Tax settings
- Continuous service (if applicable)
- Leave balances and accruals
Common mistakes to avoid
Here are the issues we see most often:
- Creating a new employee instead of using the Rehire action.
- Reusing an existing Employee ID.
- Forgetting to update the email address on the terminated record in UK Payroll.
- Using a New Hire flow that doesn't include the Employee ID field.
- Skipping a review of tax details, continuous service or leave balances before payroll is processed.
Quick checklist
Before processing a rehire, make sure you've:
- Updated the email address on the terminated record.
- Used Actions → Change work status → Rehire in Bob.
- Selected a New Hire flow with the Employee ID field.
- Assigned a new Employee ID.
- Reviewed tax settings, continuous service and leave balances.
Following these steps will help ensure your rehire syncs successfully to UK Payroll and is ready for payroll from day one.