Founder of People First Truly | Fractional HR Leader | Emerging business advisor | Empowering founders during acquisitions, building sustainable company cultures & high performing teams | DE&IBA strategist.
Founders! 📣 How do startup acquisitions impact employee careers and what can you do about it? 🤔💭 There’s a great article by Asst. Prof. Kim on HBR about their research on why the turnover rates among acquired employees are significantly higher than those hired through regular channels. ☄ Not surprisingly, employees who are acquired undergo a sudden transition without the opportunity to assess compatibility beforehand, and this lack of choice results in difficult adaptations in the new setup. And this often starts with the founders quitting first. So what can founders do to avoid this in the first place? 👉 Don’t ignore the importance of clarifying what your role as the founder will look like in the new structure. Not just immediately after the deal is signed, but on the long run too. Are you going to keep the same operational/leadership role? Are you open to transitioning to other responsibilities when the time is right? How deep will you be involved in overall strategic decisions within the acquiring company? Will you become part of their leadership team? 👉 Have a clear plan of what the transition and integration will look like. Will your employees (and you yourself) be fully or partially integrated into the acquiring company or will you remain employees of your current entity? Make sure you have a detailed people transition plan! 👉 Have the right incentive plan in place to convince your management team to stay too. 👉 Communication, communication, communication. Understandably you can’t tell anything to your employees before the deal is signed, but once it’s all sealed, you have to do more than just the announcement of the acquisition. A detailed people plan goes hand in hand with the need of a detailed transition communication plan to keep your talents that helped you succeed. ----------------------------------------- I’m Rita and I empower founders from the early stages through acquisitions to build successful businesses and organisations that are truly people first. People First Truly #peoplefirsttruly #acquisition #mergersandacquisitions #transition #peopleindeals https://lnkd.in/dTTqhJbW
𝗖𝗘𝗢 & 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘁 𝗞𝗠 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴. I am an expert at driving brand growth and visibility through personal branding, thought leadership, company brand building and PR.
6moGreat insights Rita Hallgató! Communication and a detailed transition plan are key to retaining talent during acquisitions.