Increasingly, mergers and acquisitions are becoming more common in this part of the world, especially post pandemic. Small companies got swallowed, big companies are merging to raise more equity in the long run. What does it mean for people within those companies? People like me, does an employee’s perspective matter?
We first heard the news headline back in 2018. “X and Y are merging“, I received phone calls from relatives and friends asking: Do you know? Does it affect you? What do you think? At that point of time, the organisation was fairly big, like over 70 thousands employees globally. Employees were quite closely knitted within the Asia continent. I recalled the Marketing Manager from Hong Kong whom I met during one convention. We shared experiences and best practices regularly after. When the merger news came along, “change” was expected. Imagining another 70 thousands in the global equation, it felt even bigger that there was no relevance for middle manager like me to talk about it. In other words, only the big dogs matter.
Change is inevitable. For people who are not susceptible to change, they leave.
The Marketing Manager I met left mainly because there was a lack of direction as to where Hong Kong subsidiary should report into. Change that involves big companies surely takes time. It could start in Asia and ends in America. I didn’t feel like there was any drastic change at the beginning that affected my passion. From a mono market to regional Asia and now regional Europe, I take changes with full agility. From 2018 to date, it has been 5 years since the merger announcement. I couldn’t believe that I’m finally feeling the pinch of change now.
Every week, there is organisation announcement. I’m not talking about small organisation announcement. Instead, I am talking about surprising regional organisational shuffle that involves various functions and countries. For instance, someone who was in Customer Service before is now a Country Director for a different market, or someone whom I haven’t heard of is now responsible for our division, or big dogs are obliged to take on bigger pie that he or she has no idea about. If they are picking up new pie, so do the downline at some point. Two announcements in a week is not too many, so they say.
Suddenly, everything seems so near. So near yet so far. So far because increasingly, there are strangers at office who walk in and out into Director’s room. Then, I realised all these strangers are those who’re mentioned in the announcements. Those who have not sat at our office ever could potentially be my bosses.
Like a chess game, who is next and what’s the next move?
Two people, one position for grab. I am interested in how these changes affect me. Just a day ago, my colleague came to me and said she deserved to be a director. She was going to apply for a role discretely. Who told her about it and what gives her the confidence? Is it also about whom she knew? Then, there was a management town hall meeting which was once dominated by males are now mainly females. A complete positive flip on this one. Two companies, two cultures, and two ways of doing things. Things are changing swiftly and we’re assured that we will be fine with more to come.
Two more years before reaching a decade mark of working in my current organisation across different roles. I managed to go on thus long mainly because of job rotation and enrichment, a career path I designed for myself. I have a dream to grow far with the organisation. All along, the dream seems reachable. Today, I feel foreign, confused, and deserted of where the change might bring me. Merging and acquisition for the benefit of organisations in the long run, does it matter how an employee feels?
Photo by Brendan Church
