Companies get merged all the time. More often than not, the employees, who are about to be merged, are forced into a rather passive role.
They probably didn’t have a say in the process, to begin with. It’s hard for them to imagine what the new, larger company will feel like. What about the new colleagues and managers? Naturally, some doubts arise.
Mergers typically bring about a wave of people resigning, devaluating the merger from the get-go. Maybe the employees preferred the old, smaller company. They might be uncertain as to what’s expected of them in the new company. Uncertainty doesn’t quite boost employee engagement, au contraire.
Successfully completing a merger is an excellent trigger to re-establish employees’ expectations with regard to their jobs. Merging a small team into a larger company is manageable. Merging a large corporate into an even larger corporate requires tools, models, and frameworks to discuss these expectations, preferably in a scientifically sound way.