Mergers and acquisitions are an integral part of business in any economic climate. In good times successful companies may buy their competitors to increase their market share – or when times are tough (i.e. NOW) companies may join together to weather the financial storm. For organizations that merge or are acquired it can be a scary time. Change is inevitable and human resources and organization development professionals can help manage the transition. It is not a viable option for merging organizations to throw two groups of employees (perhaps once rivals) into a room and say, “ok, play nice! Make us some money.” So here are some tips for HR and OD
professionals when managing mergers and acquisitions:

• Consider the cultures of both organizations – do you want one of these cultures to dominate in the new organization or would it be better to create a new culture? The culture for the new organization can be spelled out in an “Organizational Values Statement” but to avoid this turning out to be merely an academic exercise the new leadership must “walk the talk” and demonstrate the values of the new culture through their behaviors. This means they must demonstrate their commitment to building the new culture by taking visible and often symbolic action. The new leaders need to understand the importance of the culture building aspects of the merger but may be low or their radar screens as they become preoccupied with the financial, legal, and marketing aspects of the merger. The HR or OD professional can play an important role keeping organization culture on the radar screen for the leaders and reminding them of its importance.
• Identify the employees who will be the positive influencers or negative resistors to moving towards the new organizational culture. Use the influencers to push for change in the organization and create strategies to circumvent the resistors.
• Finally “communicate, communicate, communicate” to employees regarding the organizational values and the behaviors expected in the new organization. A good way to reinforce organizational values is this through the performance management system. Employees can be evaluated not only on achieving their goals but the way they achieve them – i.e. are their behaviors consistent with the way the organization wants to do business. This can be a powerful reinforces of values and drive the new culture to become embedded within the organizational psyche.

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