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Consultant on the Coke-Huiyuan deal and global M&A

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-09-16 17:11

Q: What is your advice in this area?

A: Retaining talent is a very big challenge; (that is true) in other countries as well. Russia is another country where you have a very fast growing economy. When an economy is growing fast, often times the talent supply is not growing (equally) fast. That results in a very competitive market for talent.

I think when companies come here to look at potential acquisition candidates, one of the things they try to understand is ... can we continue to run that company effectively, and are there changes (that should be made) after the acquisition. So I think retaining key talent and making sure (employees) can operate in an environment which leverages their ability to access markets and sell products is very important.

In terms of operating, there could be greater clarity in rules and standards, (including) making sure what the standards are.

The advice we give to companies here is not (much) different than elsewhere. I think they have to establish a strong brand as an employer, make employees understand why they are a good employer, why it's a good company for the employees to work for.

That is a challenging question. There are a lot of reasons employees choose to stay with a employer; maybe they feel they have very good career development opportunities, or they feel they receive good pay and good benefits, or maybe they enjoy the type of work they are doing.

So for companies that are going to retain people, they need to understand what motivates their employees and what's important to them, and make sure they address those needs. We work with companies to help them understand how to be a more effective and a better employer through approaches like developing a training program or strategies on compensation.

Are there ways they give employees flexibility to make decisions, to be more entrepreneurial, etc. There are a range of (steps) companies (can take) to retain employees.

Q: After an M&A deal is announced, will there be panic in the target company, especially among employees?

A: That's a very natural concern, not only in China, but for employees anywhere. Hewitt has training programs to help companies more effectively conduct acquisitions. One of the things we talk about is that, after an acquisition occurs, the first thing the company should do is try to address the "me" questions.

When the acquisition is announced, there are a lot of things that are going to change -- your business strategy, your different financial objectives -- but the employees are really concerned with what does that acquisition mean to me? So we encourage companies who are doing acquisitions to address those questions.

Employees are concerned about whether they are going to lose their job, whether their benefits will continue, or whether they will continue to do the same type of work. The first thing you need to do is to answer some of those questions. The biggest mistake you will make is to delay providing answers, even if you (aren't yet sure what the answers are).

For example, one of the questions employees ask after the acquisition is, will my benefits change? Most of the companies may not have answers immediately, but the worst mistake you can make is not to say anything to employees because you don't know. Because what happens is if you don't say anything, employees always assume the worst; they always assume that they will lose their job and that their benefits won't be as good as before.

You can help them to understand the process. You can say, “We understand and we don't know the answers, but we will (have) a process to look at these questions.”

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