A technology company had spent years growing via acquisition and, while they posted very attractive growth numbers, behind closed doors their leadership acknowledged that they were not achieving all of their goals mainly because they failed to adequately incorporate the people they were acquiring.

They had always assumed that the acquired employees would either continue doing their jobs or could simply find other roles within the parent company if they were no longer needed in the role they were in. In many cases they discovered that people were redundant, and they had a very limited approach for identifying other, relevant opportunities. This caused significant resentment as the acquired employees felt like there wasn’t really a place for them and that the plan was to get rid of them from the outset.

More than 50% of acquired employees were gone within the first 12 months and those who remained felt far less invested in the culture and future of the company. The results were hard on overall morale and also affected the brand in the market – which hurt their ability to make other acquisitions. They needed a different approach.

On completion of the next acquisition, Career Spark worked with the technology company to perform a Talent Assessment of all the current people in the organization as well as those from the acquired company. We quantified the differences between the cultures and built custom success profiles for each role. They then used the new custom success profiles and the insights provided to develop a career path and development plan for each incoming employee – whether they were continuing in their previous role or in search of a new one immediately.

The results were significant. The number of acquired employees still remaining in the company after 12 months jumped from under 50% to nearly 85%, and overall employee engagement and morale had increased across the board.

AFTER 12 MONTHS

This new approach became the model for all future acquisitions which accelerated along with the company’s overall growth trajectory.