Internal Communication with Louise Sturgess

Mergers and acquisitions

Last week our Development Director, Richard Carpenter, spoke at a conference titled ‘SME Mergers and Acquisitions’. The conference was held in London and other companies speaking included Lloyds TSB, Grant Thornton and Brandenburg Securities. Topics ranged from acquisition and disposal planning to external communication challenges in the wake of a merger or acquisition (which Richard covered). However, employees were not forgotten in all of this and the presentations also touched on how to manage the ‘people’ factor.

There is a whole stack of research about the percentage of mergers that fail and figures range from 50% to 80%. There are many possible reasons for failure but one of the most frequently cited is the ‘people factor’. In other words, many companies do not have a proper strategy in place to deal with people issues that will, may and do arise. It’s easy at times like this for the focus to be purely on the hard stuff, such as financials and systems. If this all adds up then softer parts of the equation, such as people, can be forgotten.

Internal communication plays an important role in a merger and acquisition situation. If a strategic approach is taken, it can help to retain key people as well as retaining levels of morale and motivation. Whilst more formal communication tools, such as newsletters, intranets and poster campaigns have their place, more informal communication tools such as management by walking around and events that encourage and promote informal interaction between people of the different companies have been shown to have a positive impact on the merger outcome.

It would be great to hear examples of the different communication tools you’ve used in M&A situations, what’s been most effective and why.

How useful are company BBQs?

This Friday will see the first of a series of staff BBQs (weather permitting..) that we have at RY over the summer months. We have a resident BBQ expert (no, he’s not Australian, just a committed carnivore) who takes charge of the food and a budding DJ (one of our design team) who takes care of the music. The BBQs start at 5pm on Fridays and are a great opportunity for everyone in the agency to come together at the end of the week and have a drink and a chat. Even though we all sit in the same building, although not on the same floor, it can be very easy to go for long periods of time without having a conversation with some of your colleagues. So, the BBQ provides a great opportunity to catch up with people you haven’t spoken to in a while and find out how their flat / garden / pottery classes are going.

But these BBQs also have business benefits. A survey published last week by YouGov showed that working with good colleagues was as important as money in persuading people to stay with an organisation. It’s long been known that if people feel ingrained in the social fabric of the organisation they work for then they are more likely to stay in their job – and social events like this can help. It’s also an opportunity for people to forge relationships and friendships with people they don’t necessarily sit next to or work with on a regular basis. This can lead to better cross-company communication, people developing a more in-depth understanding of what different parts of the business do and, last summer, even resulted in the set up of a couple of ‘working parties’.

It’s surprising now much strategic thinking there is behind the burgers and the bun.