For professionals serving industries in distinct capacities, this year could be, considering the previous ones - amongst the most turbulent. We have seen demise of some of the best known across industries. Banking, allied services, Manufacturing, Retail no one sector spared. In turn this affects the service providers. Such are the time that for folks with better liquidity positions, buying companies is coming rather cheap. Distress sale, 'arranged' sale is happening more rapidly. Also significant changes are happening on company operations. The pace of change is being pushed harder. There is no time to settle down, or for that matter allow folks to 'ruminate' on the past.
My thoughts are centered on an area where the 'acquirer' could do better in terms of bringing a sense of belongingness in the new structure? This is a soft aspect, I wouldn’t want to call it neglected but more often considered to be of lesser priority. You see, when an acquisition happens, presuming that business case has made its sense; acquirer obviously likes to control functions/ processes in some capacity. There is business continuity and growth at stake, synergies to be exploited and costs to be controlled. With all decisions driven with agility; here are a couple of suggestions for instilling belongingness amongst the acquired employees.
- Before embarking upon structural changes, respect the existing leadership. Invite, connect, and seek thoughts. After all no one knows the culture, nuances and dynamics of existing organization better.
- Invite and get the Tier 2 leaders too with respect to the above thoughts. Keep the sessions brief. It is not for the acquirer to opine in such sessions but to listen. Allow to mingle, but in order to jingle, structure such ‘meeting’ sessions well.
- Encourage existing employees to be in touch with their existing leadership. Interactions with the new is fine, don’t allow it to get exploited.
- Leadership changes at just the top may not necessarily help in bringing about change. Organizations are increasingly more ‘matrix’ than ‘hierarchical’.
- Communicate the values, principles of business to all.
- If structural changes call for lay-offs - create a communication plan accordingly. In the same light, it is important to communicate the ‘reasons’ clearly. If a plan is being worked out, it good not await the finer details of the plan to get ironed out. Rather, let a communication from Leadership can happen to the extent that – layoffs are coming.
- Belongingness is not a one stop get-together, series of meetings etc. It reflects through continuity of the past. Herein is the dilemma, i.e. how much of the past? Past has many aspects to it, and could include mundane trivia like keeping a coffee vending machine on or saving on mobile device bills etc.! Be sure where to go to for the savings, remembering the old adage; ‘penny wise, pound foolish’!
Finally have fact sheets and talking points awareness amongst leadership with respect to handling difficult employee situations. It is almost impossible to drive commonality in all forms of communication. But when we can agree to disagree, but why not arrive at that, what we can agree?
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