Over the past three years my core responsibility has been overseeing mergers and acquisitions (M&A). We have acquired several businesses, both large and small, and more recently were acquired ourselves as part of a management buyout (MBO).
M&A can become a bit of a machine: business cases, forecasts, heads, share purchase agreements, all resulting in the target company becoming a depersonalised ‘target’. This is a machine that potentially sucks people up and depending on the settings, can either chew them up and spit them out in pieces or fluff them up and make them feel safe – and of course, many shades in between.
In fact, we ourselves have just completed a very small acquisition, only involving bringing two additional employees into our business. I have had the opportunity and the time to meet with and talk to both employees, which as you can imagine is rather unusual as in this situation, the first time employees may see you is as their old boss is exiting the building. Chatting to these two and reflecting on my own recent personal experience has made me much more understanding of the range of emotions that employees go through, and I think it never starts well.
First emotions are generally fear of loss of employment and income, not ‘whoopee this is great news’. As the acquirer, you need to really understand this. It’s where Worzel comes in – with his ability to swap heads as necessary. Make sure you take some time to put your ‘employee head’ on and reflect on what they might be feeling and thinking. Then put your ‘M&A head’ on and decide what you are going to do about it. People are generally the most important part of any acquisition so make sure you take the time to understand them.
Chris Tossell Commercial Director, Access UK