The merging of two companies can introduce tremendous anxiety among employees in the legacy enterprises’ finance organizations. Such anxiety is understandable; the motivations and interests of a newly merged company’s finance leadership and its employees can be disparate. The former are likely focused on realizing the valuable synergies promised by the merger, which often include reduced labor costs within the finance function.
The latter may be concentrating on job security. Add to such conflicting interests the pressure to continue meeting immediate finance imperatives during the merger—generating reports, billing customers, paying vendors—and the anxiety can reach uncomfortable levels.
If the anxiety becomes paramount, performance may suffer and the finance team’s commitment to the newly merged entity can waver. Some may leave in search of more stable and comfortable environments, taking critical knowledge and leadership skills with them. In a recent Accenture survey of serial acquirers, respondents cited “managing attrition of key people” as the fourth most challenging aspect of the M&A process.
Successful integration requires the knowledge and skills of the finance workforces within both legacy companies. Therefore, it behooves finance leaders to prioritize the needs of these workforces as they plan and execute the integration. Those who do so can improve their chances of ensuring that the newly merged enterprise ends up with a whole that is more—not less—than the sum of its parts.