Research shows that the best places to work are often the most financially successful, which further underscores the importance of a good employer brand. Happy employees with a purpose outperform unhappy ones, and it takes time and effort to create a winning culture. But what happens when companies merge? A merger is among the most tumultuous of times for an organization, yet often, company culture is put on the backburner or outright neglected. The good news is steps can be taken to protect and preserve your culture through a merger.
From a shareholder-value point of view, 83% of mergers fail to yield any sort of return. There are a number of explanations for this, but one that often comes up is the failure to effectively merge corporate cultures. Without proper planning and review when combining two distinct cultures, a merger or acquisition can have a negative effect on your company’s performance and profits for years to come.
With over 1 billion Facebook users, more than 250 million LinkedIn and Twitter users, and 18 million Glassdoor users, the main influencers on culture are employees. During a merger, recognizing cultural differences and norms and creating employer brand alignment is key to maintaining employee engagement. It is also critical to build effective communications that bridge the gap between two distinct employer brands. You can undertake to do all this, yet where many organizations fall short goes all the way to the top.
Some leaders can be lulled by the success of the high-level, closed-door conversations they’ve had, and begin to believe this small sample size of co-operation and interaction represents everyone. They come to the conclusion that since leadership gets along, the rest of their organizations will too. While failing to take employees into consideration, this misconception can also add to both financial and time costs through the turnover of top talent, lower productivity, slow integration, and customer and market confusion. On top of these issues, you’re left with a less than happy workplace that could take months or even years to rectify.
Before making an acquisition, invest in uncovering your EVP with clarity. Avoid cutting corners, or you’ll end up with the same issues described above. Once you uncover the pillars of your EVP, build an employer promise and develop a playbook that will guide you and your newly merged organization through the turbulent first few weeks. Post-merger, immediately begin research with employees from the acquired company and uncover similarities and differences. Take all of these findings and clearly communicate to your team both the ties that bind and the differences that need to be worked on in order to achieve true unity.
This should always be a give-and-get relationship. For most employees, the notion that bigger is better is simply not enough. People join and stay with a company for unique, personal reasons. When that company changes ownership, all of those reasons can quickly evaporate. It is for this reason that the employees of the acquiring company need to work under an already strong EVP with a good advocacy program in place. They can lead the charge in welcoming newcomers by speaking authentically and passionately about the company. They should be your go-to advocates as your new team members develop trust in their new leadership.
Blu Ivy Group is proud to offer services geared towards companies in this exact situation. We will work with you to ensure the development of an employer brand for your merged workplace is as seamless and successful as possible, and yours remains a happy place to work.
About Blu Ivy Group
Blu Ivy Group is a leading employer branding and employee engagement consultancy that aligns your organization with contemporary workplace paradigms. Our mission is to help client’s build award-winning people practices, inspire extraordinary employee engagement, and cultivate unique and desirable workplaces. We provide integrated solutions in employer brand and engagement research, strategic consulting, employer brand integration, creative and talent communications.
Blu Ivy Group is a trusted partner to many of North America’s most respected employer brands. For more information, visit us online at bluivygroup.com or contact us at info@bluivygroup.com.