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1
HR’s Role in Managing a Merger
FACTS OF THE CASE
HL Logistics was the largest logistics company. This was a part of Deutsche Post
World Net, acquired Exel in December 2005.
Eleven thousand staff joined DHL’s 30,000 workforce.
The integration programme posed a significant management challenge.
Its aim was to achieve integration quickly and smoothly. For HR, this meant focusing on
the new management structure, organizational design, dealing with staff retention, and
harmonizing policies and procedures.
A dedicated integration team was set up to manage the process. The focus was
on open and honest communication, with initiatives such as a staff helpline and
meetings. Within 6 weeks, 260 first and second line manager positions had been
scoped and managers from both companies put through an assessment centre.
Although there were redundancies, the final management distribution was 50:50 across
the two firms, and employee numbers have since increased by about 25,000. The talent
management programme from DHL’s parent company. Deutch Post World Net, was
used across company, measuring individual performance against eight competencies.
Seven company values were developed. Although the plan was that the integration
would take 3 years, after only 18 months the programme was 90% complete and the
company managed to retain most of its cutomers.
PROBLEM OF THE CASE
The merging process went good, I cannot find any issues regarding their process
because they completed earlier that their projected time, however for me the problem
that may occur will be because of the differences of the 2 companies.
One of the primary reasons that mergers sometimes fall apart before they can
