The interim manager was brought into a family-run building materials company as HR Director due to his experience in mergers & acquisitions. The company had decided to acquire one of its most important market competitors. To implement this plan, the company needed HR expertise for both due diligence and post-merger integration.
Due diligence as essential preparation for the subsequent PMI
The HR Director very quickly established a close relationship with the previous HR Director of the acquired company, who was due to retire after the transfer of operations. The HR Director succeeded in gaining the trust of his colleague. Thanks to the wealth of background information, he was able to gain an early picture of the situation beyond the accessible data and documents. In addition, the HR Director carried out very thorough due diligence in the data room. Within two weeks, he gained a very precise picture of the need for action for the post-merger integration in the coming months.
Proactive communication with employee representatives creates trust
The works councils played a greater role in the acquired company than in the new parent company, as they were better organized (general works council), more strongly influenced by trade unions and enjoyed a high level of trust. The HR Director quickly recognized this fact and actively approached the employee representatives. He sought discussions and worked to inform the works councils comprehensively and at an early stage. He involved them in the development of new measures according to the "best-of-both-worlds" principle. In this way, he gained the trust of the works councils. This made subsequent collaboration on sensitive issues much easier.
Mixing the teams promotes integration in sales and production
Although communication, transparency and participation are important success factors in the post-merger phase, integration cannot succeed without the organizations actually "growing together". It was clear to the HR Director from his M&A experience that trust is created through proximity and proximity through cooperation. For this reason, he worked to ensure that the sales teams of the two companies were mixed in a targeted manner. He also ensured that the sales bonus system was revised. It now includes team targets in addition to individual targets. As a result, the sales representatives work more closely together. At the same time, these changes supported the strategy adopted by the Sales Director to pursue consistent cross-selling.
In production, the HR Director and the Chief Technology Officer took a similar approach, whereby a "mix" of teams was only possible in exceptional cases. However, it made sense to place both plants of one company and the other under the same management. Sometimes this was a plant manager from one company, sometimes the plant manager from the other. This also avoided "silos" and "you and us" thinking.
Harmonization of the HR systems rounds off the integration
The transfer of payroll accounting from the previous company to the new parent company was also a complex and time-consuming task. On the one hand, payroll accounting was outsourced to an external provider, while on the other, the Group was responsible for it. Thanks to a very closely managed project set up by the HR Director, the transfer was completed on time and without any errors. Other integration issues included time recording, electronic personnel files and the sales bonus system. Here too, the HR Director was able to develop comprehensive solutions on time and on budget.
