Mergers & Acquisitions

Hi Group,

I'm interested to hear what others have done in acquihire situations. We don't encounter this often, and when we do it's usually less than 5 or so new colleagues. In those instances they flow through our standard new hire process without any change management intervention. Would you do the same? In the case of an asset acquisition that doesn't include people as part of the deal, but are brought in, in parallel with the business, how do you approach change management? At what point do you throw the acquihire label out the window and approach this as you would any other integration?

Thanks,

Becky

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Becky Persak
Aon
Head of M&A - Leadership, Culture & Change
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Great question Rebecca.

Sometimes I think we make the world way to hard with all the labels and acronyms we throw around.

I am a believer in keeping things simple.  Therefore, as the VP of HR, people were a part of the acquisition strategy discussions even if we were only acquiring assets.  This would include answering the question of whether or not we were looking to hire any of the targets people outside of the acquisition process.  If so, then a process was agreed upon as part of the integration process.

Again, to keep things simple and consistent, we utilized our existing hiring processes to vet those candidates.  The only preferential treatment they received was that their names went to the top of the list to be interviewed and all those involved were aware they were from the target company.

Hope that helps.

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Anthony Casablanca
Co-Founder and President
GriefLeaders LLC
"Changing How Change is Implemented"
www.griefleaders.com
]
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Anthony, I agree simple is always best! Thanks for your response.

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Becky Persak
Aon
Head of M&A - Leadership, Culture & Change
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Original Message:
Sent: 2024-04-05 11:00
From: Anthony Casablanca
Subject: Change Management for Acquihires

Great question Rebecca.

Sometimes I think we make the world way to hard with all the labels and acronyms we throw around.

I am a believer in keeping things simple.  Therefore, as the VP of HR, people were a part of the acquisition strategy discussions even if we were only acquiring assets.  This would include answering the question of whether or not we were looking to hire any of the targets people outside of the acquisition process.  If so, then a process was agreed upon as part of the integration process.

Again, to keep things simple and consistent, we utilized our existing hiring processes to vet those candidates.  The only preferential treatment they received was that their names went to the top of the list to be interviewed and all those involved were aware they were from the target company.

Hope that helps.

------------------------------
Anthony Casablanca
Co-Founder and President
GriefLeaders LLC
"Changing How Change is Implemented"
www.griefleaders.com
]
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