Essay Example on HR Challenges When Forming Mergers

Great companies are built through the efforts of great employees. Therefore it is important to establish appropriate approaches to select the right employees. For an organization to retain and hire the right employees, there must be an effective selection and recruitment process in place. A company must align its goals, vision, and needs of workers that can embrace and embody these aspects (Depamphilis, 2011). In our case, for instance, some of the selection criteria we will implement include: establishment of assessment centers, structured interview format, and the informal meetings. Assessment centers are often used for bulk recruitment exercises, but in our case, we will use them to assess individual employees from both companies and determine who have more qualifications than the others. It is a very cost-effective process and allows assessors to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a particular employee based on his/her work performance. The structured interview format is essential for assessing employees communication and presentation skills. This approach will allow us to assess the attributes, behaviors, and skills of our employees and determine if they are fit for the merger or not. Finally, we have the informal meetings. This is a unique selection criterion but an efficient one. Informal meetings such as coffee and lunch breaks with employees can be used as a way of observing employees behavior. However, this method will be implemented after we have remained with few candidates.

When organizations merge, there are a lot of things that are affected. For instance, the culture of the individual companies is likely to change, or there may be changes in the leadership. It is fair to say that when mergers are formed there is a particular price that must be paid. There must be new departments, supervisors, and new roles for the lucky employees. Therefore we need to develop appropriate transition methodologies to help us design new departments and restructure the old ones to fit into the current organizational structure. First, we need to create a detailed guide to enable us to come up with appropriate departmental restructuring plans. This guide will act like a compass direction which will lead us to the merger. It will detail out the worst-case scenario plans and give information of how to divide different responsibilities amongst employees. We need to develop backup plans in events where things go south. For a smooth transition, we should realize the human aspect involved in the process. When merging companies, it is a fact that there are people who are likely to be fired. It is a big transformation for employees, and some individuals may not take this lightly. Therefore we have to figure out appropriate ways of laying off workers and at the same time keeping up the morale of the remaining employees. Without the support of the remaining workforce, the merger is likely to fail. Therefore it is essential that we boost the morale of the remaining individuals for smooth transitioning to occur.

In conclusion, it is vital to know that HR professionals face a lot of challenges when forming mergers. It is our responsibility to develop appropriate methodologies which will ensure the success of the merger. However, success is not easily obtained some procedures must be performed and a price to be paid. Some employees will lose their jobs and others will retain them, this will all depend on their work performance. The remaining workforce will be paid according to the agreed payment structure. However, the company has the obligation of providing bonuses and incentives to boost their morale to ensure the success of the merger. The graph below shows the relationship between productivity and morale of the employees.

References

Depamphilis, D. (2011). Introduction to Mergers and Acquisitions. Mergers and Acquisitions Basics, 1-21. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-374948-2.00001-9

Hodulak, M. (2017). Merging Tradition and Innovation: Programming New Workplaces for Tradition-Steeped Companies. Building Performance Evaluation, 117-127. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-56862-1_9

Martin, S. (2014). Mergers: An Overview. The Economics of Corporate Governance and Mergers. doi:10.4337/9781848443921.00012