Your Intranet is a Critical Part of Ensuring Successful Mergers and Acquisitions

By Dana Haase, Director of Project Management – Communications Strategy and Editorial
September 29, 2020

If a merger or acquisition fails to go smoothly, the benefits that the companies expected to gain by coming together may never come to fruition. Fallout can take the form of disruptions in business continuity, loss of client relationships and high employee turnover.

In fact, research shows:

47% of key employees leave a company within a year of the transaction and 75% leave within the first three years;
Highly talented employees who are not engaged are the first to go.

Internal communicators play a pivotal role in crafting the messaging surrounding mergers and acquisitions and establishing an open dialogue with employees. When done well, these activities can help ensure employees stay engaged and aid employee retention.

Your company’s intranet can be a valuable tool for successfully navigating the challenges of communicating a merger or acquisition. Here’s how:

Combat misinformation and speculation

Employees often have preconceived ideas about a company based on what they have read in the news or on social media. Your intranet can be a visible, open forum for addressing employees’ questions and concerns.

It was this head-on approach, separating fact from fiction that Bayer adopted when it acquired agricultural leader, Monsanto. Vice President, U.S. Internal Communications, Mary Lou Panzano explains, “Before we closed the deal, we did research that revealed confusion about why we were making this acquisition, especially among employees in our Pharmaceuticals and Consumer Health divisions. Out of that research came a series we hosted on our intranet called ‘Make Your Point.’ It was an opportunity to give Bayer’s point of view, address common misconceptions, and provide access to resources so employees could learn more on their own.”

Counteract feelings of us vs. them

Moving employees from an adversarial mindset to one of collaboration is a critical first step in building a unified company culture. Your intranet can be an avenue to getting employees to see their new colleagues not as names and titles on an org chart, but as people.

Bayer leveraged its intranet to build such bridges between its existing and incoming Monsanto employees. “Access to the Bayer intranet was available on day one for Monsanto employees. We created a special microsite called ‘Advancing Together’ with the latest news on the integration of the companies, onboarding information, photos, and contests. It also enabled us to connect employees virtually and help them get to know their counterparts,” says Panzano.

Eliminate confusion around access to systems and resources

As information gets consolidated and moved or access to business systems change, how you communicate these changes is critical to eliminating confusion and frustration among employees. Your intranet is the single source of truth for this information. Panzano counsels, “There are so many things changing for employees as part of an acquisition, keeping them informed is critical, and the intranet is a major part of the channel mix. It’s important for the communications team to explain, this used to be here, now it’s here and provide resources to navigate the site, update profiles, and customize settings to enhance their experience.”

Have you managed communicating a merger or acquisition in your organization? What worked? What didn’t? Share your experience in the comments.