Earning Employee Trust and Support during a Merger and Integration

Results

ROI Communication won two IABC Gold Quills and several other leading industry awards for this merger- and integration-related communication campaign.

Earning Employee Trust and Support During a Merger and Integration

ROI Communication helped a global computer company plan and implement effective internal communications to earn employee trust and support during a bruising proxy fight, merger and integration.

Challenge

In 2001, a global computer company announced the largest high-tech merger in history, sparking a contentious proxy battle with the founders’ family members. Embattled, the company leadership needed its employees — many of them shareholders — to support the merger. Meanwhile, employees were receiving conflicting information from a variety of sources — the company, the media and the grapevine — and weren’t sure who to trust. Recognizing that this confusion threatened the endeavor’s success, the company brought in ROI Communication to help gauge employee sentiment on a range of issues, rebuild trust in leadership, strengthen support for the merger, and establish a stronger communications infrastructure for the pending integration.

Solution

Collaborating with the company’s internal communications team, ROI helped:

Identify employees’ communication needs and develop a communications strategy to help company leaders meet them.
Establish a baseline employee understanding of the merger and integration process, the company’s goals, and their roles in achieving them.
Create new channels through which employees could learn more about the process, such as the online “Ask-an-Integration-Question” service.
Solicit employee feedback through weekly surveys and report trends.
Manage large-scale communication projects and events.
Create merger-specific web sites, articles, brochures, posters and key messages.
Develop briefing documents, speeches and talking points for executives.
Design and implement processes and tools to communicate key information throughout the organization.

Results

Communications throughout the merger and subsequent integration proved highly successful. With ROI Communication’s expertise, the company’s internal communication and leadership teams were able to:

Gain an accurate, comprehensive understanding of major employee concerns.
Design and execute a communications strategy that helped earn sufficient support from employees to win shareholder approval for the merger.
Articulate the company’s emerging strategy and the employees’ role in its success.
Establish a robust internal communications system — including roles, tools and processes — that even today helps facilitate effective communication between employees and management.