Globalization and its Effect on HR
Many companies are finding that if they are going to compete with other companies in their market, then they must eventually compete through globalization. The most common way of doing this is through mergers and acquisitions of foreign companies that seem to share common ground. There are things that must be taken into consideration concerning human resources when going through such a change. One of these things is the corporate culture of both the parent company and the company that is being acquired or merged with. Producing items of a like nature or similar industry is not enough to hold two companies together. Two different cultures can really throw a wrench into the works. One example of an acquisition with different cultures is Merck and Serono. Separately, they were both in the pharmaceutical industry. It seemed like a good match, but their cultures and business models were very different. This could have turned into a very messy acquisition. However, they worked to find the best of both companies’ values to combine them and thus keep everyone happy. It turned out to be a very successful acquisition due to the establishment of a central integration office and the HR integration team. They made sure to stay in strong communication and revamped the two different performance management systems into one. They also hade change management workshops to help employees with any difficulties they might be coming across during the changes being made to make the acquisition a success. While in surveys, employees of both original companies thought the cultures were very different, they both emphasized quality, innovation, teamwork, customer service, and a common vocabulary. Through good communication and strong efforts to respond to the needs of everyone in the organization as much as possible, the Merck-Serono acquisition was an extremely successful one.
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