One of the world's largest adhesives manufacturers (US group) took over the adhesives division of a Swiss group of companies. As part of the due diligence process, all European sites were analyzed and evaluated. Five of 14 (post-acquisition) sites in Europe were closed and production, including machinery and equipment, was relocated to the nine remaining sites.
At the same time, the existing sites were to be harmonized and standardized. It also had to be ensured that the receiving sites were able to take over the different production processes and integrate them into their processes. This in turn meant that the workforces at the sites to be closed had to guarantee the productivity and quality of the products until production was relocated.
HR interim manager also takes over site management
After the closure and relocation of production was announced, the interim manager took up his position at the largest site to be closed. As the former managing director was not taken on, the interim manager was also assigned site management in addition to his role as HR project manager and interim HR manager, reporting directly to the US management and the HR director, who was located at another site.
First of all, it was important to build trust with the workforce and the co-determination committees, which he managed to do in a short space of time. The sickness rate of over 30%, which skyrocketed after the closure announcement, was reduced to a normal level within a short space of time. The strikes and negative media information announced by the works council were avoided, which did not damage the Group's image. After initial difficulties in the cooperation with the works council, which was acting quite harshly due to the closure situation, the cooperation became more and more constructive.
In addition, the interim manager also supported the other four locations in Europe (Spain, UK, Italy, Czech Republic) that were due to be closed in meetings with the HR managers there and the regular meetings of the European Steering Committee. Another task was the step-by-step relocation of administrative processes (Finance, Customer Service, Sales) to a European Shared Service Center in Portugal. Here, too, it had to be ensured that customers continued to be supported until the relocation and that business reporting was guaranteed.
Know-how in sales and development secured
The sales representatives were also transferred to an existing location in Germany, which did not lead to any loss of know-how. It was also very important to retain the know-how carriers in development and engineering. The interim manager succeeded in retaining the entire development team of over 20 highly qualified employees, with the exception of two redundancies, and in transferring them to sites in Germany and France.
After the works council had developed an 'alternative concept' to retain part of the site as a 'center of excellence' for a specific product range, the HR interim project manager had to refute this concept together with experts from the Group. Negotiations were then started on a reconciliation of interests and a redundancy plan. At the same time, a so-called 'retention package' with clear target agreements was negotiated and implemented, whereby monthly targets for productivity and quality as well as sickness absence were agreed. If the targets were achieved, certain bonuses were paid on top each month, which meant that the workforce was relatively motivated until the final closure and productivity and quality were maintained.
No bonus was paid for sickness absence, which is why the sickness rate was low (between 5% and 8%, which is very low for a closure situation!).
Another task of the interim manager was to work with the host sites to encourage the know-how carriers and production specialists to pass on their expertise to their colleagues in Germany, but also to the foreign sites in France and Italy. To this end, secondment agreements were negotiated. Some employees were recruited to work at the new sites for a longer period of time after the production relocation until the team there was able to master the production processes that had been taken over.
After the relocation and closure, the interim manager took care of the site's management. Among other things, he commissioned external service providers to clean up the site and demolish the halls. All documents were also destroyed or transferred to other locations in line with data protection requirements.
