Employee Morale & Retention: The Silent Risk
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What I’m observing during the changes connected to integration and synergies is the silent risk of losing people. Employees fear layoffs, upcoming leadership changes, as well as unclear career paths in the post-merger organization. The challenge is that many of them not communicate it and they might look for other opportunities. As a consequence the company might face losing key talents needed for successful integration. What can help to minimize this risk? For me transparent communicatio and cultural workshops to ensure alignment. What is your perspective?
During those phases, it is critical to identify the key people and approach them immediately rather than later. The best elements will not wait usually, they will be proactive and headhunters will go after them. So the risk is, indeed, to lose the key people and to keep the average ones.
Leadership should not only share updates but also create channels for employees to voice concerns and ask questions. Regular Q&A sessions, anonymous feedback tools, and pulse surveys can help identify issues before they escalate. Outlining clear career development pathways within the new structure reassures employees that growth opportunities still exist post-merger.
Money talks. Secure your hipo’s with retention packages and early communication. They way, they’ll be champions of the message as well.
The harsh reality in most m&a tend to be that the C-suite and senior management may be let go given how many CFOs or COOs can there be for a merged entity to very simplistically put across. Whilst we wish that the synergies bring about increased revenues, capabilities, territorial reach etc, it takes time. The other immediate way is to reduce cost. Of course need to quantify the qualitative vs quantitative factors, pros and cons and work towards the synergistic gains. Often time, the people leave for what is perceived greener pastures in other companies or become victims of corporate restructuring.
I am in agreement with the recommendations listed in the prior posts. I’m curious to better understand the best practices for how long to continue these efforts? Is there value to continue this beyond the first 100 days? When do employees feel truly integrated into the business and when does the morale risk decrease?
Responding to your comment Lindsay – I’d say this needs to be a much longer than 100 day focus. Employees and morale risk tend to depend on how substantive the change was, how long the integration takes, etc. From an IT perspective you could be looking at years worth of changes that impact their morale and work productivity. I’d say at minimum 12-24 months of focus.
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