Reference no: EM133776464
For a little more than three years you have been a human resources manager at a mid-sized company that specializes in specialty wood products. The business has 250 employees, most of whom have been with the company for nearly 25 years. Retirements are afoot, as is the need to rescale the company to align with the global marketplace. You have been tasked by the vice-president of operations to map out a comprehensive HR strategy that supports three key business objectives -- 1) sales growth; 2) employee productivity; 3) organizational culture. You have noticed that there seems to be opportunity to enhance the operations, but it may mean retraining, layoffs and introducing artificial intelligence. You have completed a planning checklist, implemented a mentoring program and brought an HRIS system online.
The challenges of mobilizing your workforce to grow and change have been largely overcome, but the difficulty of finding trained workers, or promoting up, has increased. As a result, your company decides to merge with a competitor firm to strengthen your market position, harness the combined workforce, and grow sales.
You have to use your leadership abilities to mobilize your organization for the merger, recognizing that few details are yet available about what will happen, if jobs will be lost, or what the company will even be called. Nonetheless, you draft a merger communication to mobilize the stakeholder base.
Discussion:
A communication plan that you will send to various stakeholder groups, outlining the rationale for the merger, a list of who you will include in the circulation, and what the next steps for implementation may be. Three to four paragraphs are plenty for this post, but touch on key elements of organizational culture and behaviour in your plan, timing and communication methods. In the discussion forum, point out the perceived holes in the plans of your classmates and prepare for criticism of your own plan. This is a strategic thinking and growth exercise that requires precision and thoughtfulness.