Mergers and Acquisitions: The HR Process for Making Staffing Decisions

Excerpt from After the Merger

Introduction
Why Should Incumbents Be Evaluated?
What's Wrong with Letting Incumbent Executives in the Target Company Submit an Appraisal of Their Own Management Team?
What's Wrong with Having Some Executives in the Acquiring Company Make a Casual, Subtle, Informal Assessment of the Target Company's Management Team?
  

Introduction

Over the years, the conventional HR process of making staffing changes on the heels of an acquisition has taken one of two forms.  Sometimes the acquired firm steps in early to make people changes, whether in just a handful of positions or with wholesale reorganization.  In the other approach, the parent company attempts to maintain a hands-off stance again, except for perhaps one or two initial changes until several months have elapsed that hopefully allow enough time for everyone to calm down and become adjusted to the situation.  One of the familiar steps in this second tactic involves assurances from executives in the parent company to the effect that, “We don’t plan any personnel changes.”

In both of these approaches, however, the critical element that’s missing is . . .