Situation

A spinoff of a Big Five accounting firm was combining 36 outsourcing firms into one -- a $300 million company. They needed help preparing for the merger: especially focusing on the people-side of due diligence and creating a corporate office from the ground up. Management knew that they would need a solid corporate structure to help them manage the new firm.

Solution

Because the company wanted the new entity to operate as a decentralized but interdependent organization, management needed to create a set of Guiding Principles to communicate executive views about business and people strategy, values, technology strategy and company mission. These principles became the basis for the new firm's roles, organization structure, staffing levels and people practices. They looked to us for our strength in change management, process creation and organization design.

We also developed Role Maps to help executives agree on roles and which offices would have decision-making authority. From these roles job descriptions, number of staff and selection decisions evolved. One challenge was how to design a central sales support staff that could complement the businesses' sales efforts.

Together with executive leadership, we also created an Office of the Chairman organization structure and developed procedures to lead the company. We also organized an Operations Council to manage the company's operations and facilitated both groups through team chartering exercises.

To guide effective meetings for each group, the groups created basic operating procedures and company policies: spending levels, job titling, recruiting.

A president's council would connect businesses and corporate officers on a regular basis. This would permit them to address issues such as corporate vision, people-strategy, IT plan and corporate accounting standards.

Since the company wanted to emphasize the people side of the organization, they focused on developing specific people practices with their Human Resources Director. They designed an HR project plan to anticipate issues in forming a company, preparing internal communications events and content, and designing the HR organization and work processes.

In order to improve the chance of success during the due diligence phase, we created an HR Due Diligence Questionnaire for potential roll-up partners. Aon Benefits and Compensation Consulting added a survey of employee benefits and compensation issues. Interim benefits were created for groups that would lose coverage and longer-range solutions were proposed.

Results

This company had the foresight to realize that creating a new company could create all sorts of people-side issues. They were also proactive about addressing issues before they became critical, not after. And it paid off. They began operations and quickly went from building infrastructure to actually serving customers.