Everything you need to know about our employee merger and acquisition surveys

What is a merger and acquisition survey?

Mergers and acquisitions are stressful and difficult times for your people, merger and acquisition surveys are designed to ensure that you understand how your people are coping with the accelerated rate of change. 

When it comes to your people, mergers and acquisitions have particular impacts on retention and productivity. A well-designed merger and acquisition survey should help you to keep the pulse on how your people are thinking and feeling about the changes within your organisation. 

What makes our merger and acquisition surveys different?

Merger and acquisition surveys aren’t as popular as we think they should be, as they’re a vital tool in ensuring the success of this potentially tricky and risky time in the life of your business. Not all employee surveying platforms have merger and acquisition surveys included as standard, so this capability already sets us apart from the crowd. 

We take merger and acquisitions seriously as although they can be a risk, they’re obviously also a big opportunity in the lives of our customers when executed well. We offer two surveys designed to be used together - one post-announcement and one post-integration. This gives you full coverage to understand what your people want and need during these turbulent times. 

What questions are included in our merger and acquisition surveys?

The 9-question post announcement survey focuses on key neuroscience areas such as safety, clarity and meaning and purpose.

We enable you to truly understand how your team members are thinking AND feeling at an emotionally difficult time. This means that you will be able to support your people through the change more effectively and efficiently.

The in-depth 17-question post integration survey dives deeper into more neuroscience areas to support a more holistic view of integration success.

We allow you real insight into how your people are reacting to the change on a deeper level. By using our pre-built employee surveys you can be sure that you’re uncovering areas of success or weakness in plenty of time to implement meaningful action plans.

What are the benefits of our merger and acquisition surveys?

It is so easy to get mergers and acquisitions wrong. There has been a lot of research on how people get this wrong, and what impact this can have. Here are a few powerful statistics: 

• Only 10% of businesses report “significant success” in retaining employees after a merger - PWC

• 65% increased chance of achieving returns to shareholders with a focus on employee experience following an M&A - McKinsey

• 30% of mergers and acquisitions fail because of cultural incompatibility - Deloitte

The risks of getting the merger & acquisition process wrong are clear. But what can you do to make the transition smoother for your people? Our merger and acquisition surveys will give you the data you need to get this process right. 

What are the limitations of our merger and acquisition surveys?

Our merger and acquisition surveys are not designed to ensure the cultural compatibility of the two organisations that are joining together. You will need to do your due diligence ahead of time and lay your own groundwork in order to ensure a smooth transition, especially if there is a big cultural difference between the organisations. Completing a cultural assessment survey of both organisations will help you to identify differences. For even more support, working with our consultants to create a bespoke surveying option may be particularly helpful to you. 

If the organisation you have acquired or are merging with have had a bad track record of conducting surveys and not acting on the feedback given, you may find that the data you get is incomplete or inaccurate. We can help to mitigate this with our communication planning support and materials which we offer as standard. However, you may need to do further work to help employees understand how you will be processing and acting on the feedback collected. 

Lastly, simply surveying your people will not be enough to ensure a smooth merger and acquisition process. You will also need to act on the feedback you are given. It’s really important to set time and resources aside to do this properly. 

Why should you use our merger and acquisition surveys?

Our series of surveys will support you in getting the data and insights you need to make the right decisions for the needs of your team. Here are our top 5 benefits from using our survey for your organisation: 

1. Improve employee retention: Listening to your people during a difficult time will create goodwill. We know that it’s important to also act on the feedback you receive but simply taking this important first step will help your people feel heard and valued. This is vital during tough times. 

2. Ensure everyone has the resources they need to succeed: When HR teams and managers are busy it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks. By listening to your people you will be able to quickly identify if there are any gaps in resourcing or equipment that are hampering productivity. 

3. Create more clarity for your people: Clarity is so important to your team’s engagement and by understanding how they’re hearing your messaging and programming you will be able to mitigate any problems that arise more quickly than waiting for information to filter through via office chit chat. 

4. Build trust within your organisation: Building trust is a slow process and it’s easy to lose trust very quickly. By investing in your people’s anonymity you’re showing that you value their feedback. This will help build and maintain trust at all levels within your organisation. 

5. Create a culture of listening: During a merger or acquisition you can reassess and redirect what you want your culture to look like. By starting with listening you can show your people that this is how you mean to go on, and create a culture that values open and honest two-way feedback. 

What actionable insights might you gain from our merger and acquisition surveys? 

Our surveys are designed to support you throughout the merger and acquisition process. This means that some of the insights you might get are: 

1. Small issues that might become bigger problems: By surveying twice during the merger and acquisition process you will be getting timely feedback. This will help you identify, isolate and fix small problems before they escalate. This will save you resources and time in the long run. 

2. Key strengths: Our customers often find the process is going even better than they had hoped. By learning what you’re doing well you can take these key learnings forward and apply them in a wider context. Plus, you will be able to reassure leadership teams that you have a handle on team morale. 

3. Suggested actions from your team: you may find that team members come up with valuable ideas or suggestions that you’re able to implement to make the process better for everyone. Although you may not be able to implement every single one, our customers often find that their team members share something that they had overlooked. 

4. Breakdowns in communication: your plan may be flawless, but sometimes messaging gets missed or misunderstood. By understanding when communication breaks down and how your people are thinking and feeling, you can correct these kinds of communication failures quickly and directly. Our closing the feedback loop tool can help you do this anonymously. 

5. Areas to return to: your surveys may uncover issues not directly related to your merger and acquisition process. If this is the case, you can communicate a clear plan of action to your team and return to it at a later date. 

What impacts have our customers seen from using our merger and acquisition surveys?

Here are some of the insights customers have gained using our merger and acquisition survey and programme ideas they have implemented: 

• One of our customers used our survey to understand how those who have joined their organisation via the acquisition process feel. The responses highlighted that the organisations are culturally aligned and that so far, the change has been a success.

• Another explained that having THI available to their people was “invaluable” during the acquisition processes and provided “essential feedback”. 

How can you make sure you’re successful with our merger and acquisition surveys?

Just running merger and acquisition surveys isn’t enough to guarantee return on investment. Here are some steps you should consider taking to get the results you and your organisation need. 

1. Maintain transparency: Communication is always important but during a merger and acquisition process it becomes extra vital. We always recommend sharing but not scaring. You’re working with adults who will know if you’re being less than honest with them, so it’s usually best to be clear and to communicate any road bumps and what you’re doing to mitigate impacts. 

2. Take meaningful action: Just listening isn’t enough, you also need to ensure that you take action where warranted off the back of the feedback provided by your people. If you neglect this step you will undo any of the good work you’ve started. 

3. Communicate limitations clearly: Mergers and acquisitions are naturally busy times for leadership, HR and managerial teams, so you won’t be able to do everything and some things might have to wait longer than you’d like. You can minimise fall out from this by communicating limitations clearly and laying out a positive roadmap for your team. 

4. Empower managers: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to merger and acquisitions, so the best way of ensuring success is to empower managers to be flexible within a framework. Giving them access to the data they need about their team will help them to support their people to the best of their ability. 

5. Continue to listen: You shouldn’t just stop with our merger and acquisition survey set. Instead complement it with always-on listening such as our Employee Voice survey. You may find that a follow up cultural assessment further down the line will also support you in building a cohesive culture. 

For more information about building a culture of wellbeing that works for your unique team, why not check out our eBook: Creating An Employee Engagement AND Happiness Strategy. 

What other surveys should you run with our merger and acquisition surveys?

Our merger and acquisition surveys are designed to get you the results that your organisation needs. But to maximise impact, we recommend using them alongside our other surveys to support the cultural health of your organisation. The most effective in supporting this process include:

• Employee Voice: Stay reactive to the changes to what your team needs and wants with our always-on listening offering.

• Cultural Assessment: Understand the wider context of how people think and feel about your workplace culture with our in-depth survey that will give you all the context you need to make decisions in everyone’s best interests. 

• eNPS: This quick and easy survey allows you to understand your team's employee experience and the impact of your organisation's culture.

If you want to learn more about how our onboarding survey could supercharge your organisation’s culture, why not chat to one of our experts? Book in a call today.