Is it bad practice to make a setter return “this”?

Question

Is it a good or bad idea to make setters in java return \"this\"?

public Employee setName(String name){
   this.name = name;
   return this;
}

Answer 1

This may be less readable

list.add(new Employee().setName("Jack Sparrow").setId(1).setFoo("bacon!")); 

or this

list.add(new Employee()
          .setName("Jack Sparrow")
          .setId(1)
          .setFoo("bacon!")); 

This is way more readable than:

Employee employee = new Employee();
employee.setName("Jack Sparrow")
employee.setId(1)
employee.setFoo("bacon!")); 
list.add(employee);