Recruiting and Retaining Talent During Organizational Change

Introduction

The scenario addressed in this paper represents one of the more extreme examples of organizational change — a corporate merger. However, with three months available to prepare, there is a meaningful window for planning and facilitating the transition. This analysis creates a guide for meeting the objectives of employee retention throughout the merger. There will undoubtedly be a great deal of employee resistance to change that manifests as soon as news of the merger breaks.

The leader will need to have all available information prepared, including the change's impact on each individual's position, job requirements, and compensation, among other factors. The leader will also need to have an intimate knowledge of the new organization and its culture, serve as a source of inspiration, provide a vision for both individuals and the collective organization, and navigate many tactical objectives along the way.

Planning for Organizational Change

The planning phase will be one of the most vital stages in managing organizational change. The leader needs to fully understand the changes to the organization — and to the individuals who constitute it — before crafting any leadership strategy. The leader also needs to understand the new organization's structure and culture in order to envision what an ideal outcome might look like. During periods of organizational change, leadership is essential to providing the guidance needed to overcome employees' natural resistance. However, the leader must have an effective plan and be able to communicate it in the form of a compelling vision.

Beyond the details of the employees' contractual agreements in the merger — which will be of vital interest to current employees — there is also a need to understand the organizational culture of the new entity so that employees know what to expect in the new environment. There will undoubtedly be some cultural changes accompanying the merger that will require adjustment by the organization. Culture is a broad term representing a concept of shared beliefs and values found within an organizational setting.

Although organizational culture can be relatively abstract, there are models that can help make this information more tangible. For example, Weisbord's Six Box Model is used in organizational diagnosis to structure investigation and data collection into six categories: purposes, structure, relationships, rewards, leadership, and helpful mechanisms (Paine, 2008). Each of these categories can be identified from an internal perspective — such as employees or management — or from an external source such as customers, clients, or vendors. Once the source of dissatisfaction is determined and identified, it becomes possible to take corrective action. However, this model does not take a fully holistic approach to items such as a gap analysis. Nevertheless, these categories provide a useful way to rate and understand an organization, and applying the model to the new organization before the merger would give existing employees a clearer sense of what to expect before the transition is made.