Reference no: EM133039755
The Case of Finsso Financial Services
Finsso Financial Services is a financial company that was established in 2005 by Alex Smith (Finsso's CEO). The company provides specialist financial services to assist individuals with reaching their financial goals. Their main core business involves wealth management and stock market management. The company are based in Melbourne, hire 100+ full time staff and are organised into 5 core divisions to reflect their main financial services. The company have previously experienced great success and have grown exponentially.
The recent global pandemic has had a significant impact on organisations as they have been forced to adapt and change at a rapid rate. Many industries have been financially impacted, resulting in restructuring, downsizing and sometimes closures. Finsso was not immune to the impacts of the global pandemic and were faced with significant financial issues. In seeking to keep the organisation running, Alex Smith the CEO was faced with many difficult decisions. To assist with the financial woes, during the middle of the pandemic, Alex was left with no choice but to restructure the organisation and merge two divisions together (division A and division B). The merger would result in at least 15 staff being made redundant (from division B). Soon after Alex had communicated the news to his divisional managers, word spread that changes were coming to the organisation. Alex had indicated that an email would be sent to all staff outlining the changes. However, before the email was sent staff heard the news from colleagues. Upon hearing the news many staff were quite upset, particularly as they were learning about the news informally from colleagues via text message and frantic phone calls. When staff asked their divisional managers, they were told that an eamail was coming and "to please remain calm".
The email from Alex was eventually sent to all staff outlining the changes - the merger of two divisions. Many staff responded with questions and concerns; however their emails went unanswered. Several weeks later after the news was communicated to employees, they were informed if they still had a job.
It has since been several months since the restructure and many staff are still feeling the impact of the change. The once productive and encouraging working environment has changed, with many staff in the new division feeling unmotivated and absenteeism has increased significantly. In response to the changes to the organisation, they decided to conduct a mid-year survey in the new division to see how staff were going. The survey results were disappointing. The survey indicated that employees were not very happy overall. The survey found that 100 percent described the communication from the CEO and their divisional manager as poor, 85 percent did not feel valued by the CEO or their divisional manager and several commented that working from home had significantly impacted the culture of the organisation with no opportunities to check in with each other. Several comments noted that staff felt isolated and felt the CEO had disappeared, with limited leadership evident. Many also left comments saying that they were left shocked by the sudden change in organisational structure and that the need for the change was unclear as they thought Finsso was going well financially.
Question : As part of the organisational restructure, the new division mostly compromises of the old division A employees as the 15 employees who were made redundant were originally part of division B. As such there are several employees as part of the old division B who have never worked with employees in division A and have only had very limited interactions with them. Moving forward it is important that the employees are able to build and maintain working relationships. What would you advise the HR department at Finsso to do to assist with the process of socialising the new employees (old division B) within the new division? Then outline two benefits of socialisation for each of the following: the new employees, the new division and Finsso