— New whitepaper

Where M&A value is won or lost

Find out where your deal is exposed before Day 1 does it for you. Test your assumptions, protect critical talent and keep performing through the change.

Download the paper

Where M&A value is won or lost - new white paper

Where deals break down

Before the deal

Capacity assumptions do not hold. The organisation cannot absorb change at the pace the deal assumes.

At Day 1

Leadership is not aligned just as execution needs to accelerate. Decisions slow and priorities diverge.

After close

Execution drifts as attention moves to end-state design, and value erodes quietly.

Deals rarely fall short because the transaction logic is flawed. They fall short in what happens next, when leadership is not aligned, critical talent becomes unsettled and decisions slow down just as execution needs to speed up.

The hard part is not completing the deal. It is making it work.

— What’s inside

A three-phase framework for the people side of M&A

Phase 1 – Pre-deal, understand workforce reality

Traditional HR due diligence checks policies and liabilities. This goes further and tests whether the organisation can actually deliver the deal, across value, risk, fit and Day 1 readiness.

Phase 2 – Prepare for Day 1

How to turn assumptions into owners, decisions and actions. It covers what to focus on for mergers and for carve-outs, from leadership and decision rights to pay, contracts, TUPE and transition service agreements.

Phase 3 – Sustain performance

Day 1 is not the finish line. This phase covers how to stop execution drifting, align reward to deal intent, support line managers and track whether value is actually being realised.

Where to start – a workforce risk and value baseline

Six areas to test before deal assumptions are locked in. It also shows how to turn the baseline into a decision tool for this deal and the next one.

— Who it’s for

Written for the people who have to make the deal work

This whitepaper is for CPOs and CHROs accountable for workforce, reward, culture and change through an integration or separation.

It is just as useful for CFOs and deal sponsors, transaction and corporate development teams, and the business leaders keeping delivery on track while the change lands.

In our experience, CPOs are often brought in too late, after financial and legal due diligence has already shaped the deal. This paper is built to help change that.

3

phases, from pre-deal to post-close

6

baseline areas to test whether the deal is deliverable

Questions the report challenges you to ask

Is the CPO in the room before the deal is shaped, or handed a brief once it is done?

Do you know which five people, if they left in the first 90 days, would put the deal at risk?

Can your HR function resource this deal without compromising everything else it is already doing?

If Day 1 arrived tomorrow, could you pay everyone correctly, confirm their contracts and answer their basic questions about what happens next?

Six months after close, how will you know whether the deal is delivering its people-dependent value, and who is accountable if it is not?

“Too often, the people workstream is under-resourced and under-represented in deal teams. That is where risk accumulates.”

stream, water flowing - Merger and Acquisition - white paper

— THE AUTHORS

Want to talk through the findings?

James McLintic
Executive Director – Head of Client Management

— DOWNLOAD THE WHITEPAPER

Get the full framework.

Download the whitepaper to

Get a practical framework to focus effort before, during and after Day 1
See where people and workforce risks can hit value, confidence and pace
Take away specific actions to stabilise the organisation and protect critical talent
Use the CPO question sets to test whether your own deal is deliverable

Preparing for a transaction?

A short workforce risk assessment can quickly show where people issues may affect value, confidence or delivery.

Talk to our M&A team