Nowadays organisational mergers are nothing new. A quick Google search on just about any day of the year will bring up loads of headlines and stories where various media experts, financial journalists and business big wigs will give their opinion on whether the merger is good news or not.
Their take on things is usually based on financial reasons and what the merger will do for the share price. If it’s a big merger, the industry involved might be affected – even for a little while. Usually there’s very little talk about the effect on the workers involved in the two companies. You might hear a few cursory mentions of possible redundancies and branch or office closures, but what’s neglected in their articles and interviews is the changes in culture for people who stay in the company.
It’s very rare that two companies involved in a merger – or takeover – have exactly the same culture or values. They may think they do, but culture is often so intangible it’s practically impossible to match. People in organisations struggle to put their fingers on exactly what the culture where they work is, they just know it’s not what the organisation does, it’s how it does it. They will usually say they like it (or large parts of it anyway), and don’t want it to change.
So even the smallest and subtlest of changes can upset the applecart. For example, what if someone has always liked working in a close-knit team where there’s an atmosphere of fun and a new merger means they’re expected to work in an […]
