By Srinivas Kandula

Organizations, like humans, evolve as they grow over time. While growth may be driven by the need to boost revenues or increase the size of the workforce, evolution is always a function of how an organization’s culture has manifested along with its growth. It is the way an organization, in its process of going global, is able to sustainably embrace different cultures and entwine them into a common organizational culture.

It is a feat far easier said than done. After all, an individual’s behaviour itself is already complex: the bigger picture even more so. Culture is largely the sum of shared patterns of behaviour learned through the process of socialization. When different groups come together to achieve common goals as an organization, the complexity increases significantly: as was our experience at iGATE.

As an organization, iGATE has grown both in organic and inorganic ways. In its journey over the last two decades, the company has undergone several integration processes involving different cultures. At one point, the company consisted of more than 30 different brands as a result of several acquisitions. Back in 2003, the leadership team led by the CEO successfully integrated them all into one brand, and led the company to be one of the fastest earning IT companies in the industry.

In order to have a smooth integration process, we needed to have a robust framework in place that looked at several dimensions while integrating different sets of people. From a legal perspective, every land has its law when it comes to transfer of operations and every country has its terms of compliance with respect to its corporate and labor laws. As an organization, we have studied such laws in every country that we have invested in for growth.

As a result, we take into account all benefits that employees have been enjoying in the company and take appropriate actions to protect them. While some of these benefits are generic across countries, some of them are quite specific to the regional culture. Hence, this ensures continuity of the culture with no gaps and adds a score for a smooth integration process. The job here is to ensure that no employee feels like they are working for a different company even if it involves a transfer of employees between the two companies.

Questions and answers
Drawing from our experiences with integration, all concerns of employees during integration can be summed up by one or more of these three questions:

– Will my job be secure and my benefits continue?

– Will I lose my connections with the older leadership team and the company vision?

– What will my career prospects be in the integrated organization?

The biggest strength in any integration is the coming together of two different sets of employees that creates a bigger workforce. If not handled well, this process could become the weakest point in the integration effort. The single biggest concern in most employees’ minds is always uncertainty about the future. Efforts to ward off any anxiety must be taken early on and a strong medium of communication must be established. Communication about the steps being taken to integrate employees, processes, etc., along with third-party testimonials such as analyst and media reports, will help bring about positive vibes within both organizations. The key leaders in the new organization must lead the way in communicating the vision, mission and values of the company and run periodical internal campaigns for all employees to commonly relate to these.

Every employee joins a company expecting to be appreciated for his work. It is very important to realize that and acknowledge past experiences. At the same time, one needs to judiciously ensure continuity in the roles without letting the past become baggage that hinders the future prospects of the individual and the company. With newer people moving into different functions, it is essential to avoid any kind of isolation within groups. All employees must be tied together by a common chain of communication without leaving anyone disadvantaged.

Our trysts with integration
While a simple rebadging exercise could take anywhere between three to nine months, a full integration program can take much longer than that depending on the complexities involved. The icing on the cake in our integration experience has been that of Patni Computer Systems Ltd. When iGATE announced the acquisition of Patni in January 2011, it marked the largest leveraged buyout in the IT industry. On the employee side, the challenge was to integrate a massive employee base of 26,000 people between two companies. These two sets of people came from diverse forms of culture, different backgrounds and countries.

We approached the entire integration program quite differently. We clearly defined the vision and other attributes of the combined organization almost immediately after the acquisition and quickly integrated the front-end functions of both organizations into one. We rolled out common policies, employee grades, titles, benefits and compensation to all employees as we further integrated the shared services teams of both companies. With an undercurrent of constant communication and several internal programs, the integration exercise was smoother than expected and we began functioning as a single brand organization within one year of the acquisition. Having the attrition level drop to 15 per cent from over 30 per cent reflects a successful integration program.

The secret sauce?
While there may not be a secret sauce for integration programs, there are some cardinal steps that we apply in these scenarios:

– Before the program actually starts, launch a process to study and understand the culture of the other organization and its employees;

– The process of rebadging the employees will ensure that compensation and all related benefits will be protected and any gaps identified will be filled to the benefit of the employee;

– Common forums with representation from both organizations will be established to provide for sharing plans and debating what works and what does not;

– Implementation of the plans with reasonable flexibility to accommodate change and pre-defined metrics for evaluation; and

– Periodic assessment and corrective action to ensure the process is on track.

At the end of it all, integration calls for immense teamwork, clarity in vision and strong leadership to be successful.

Srinivas Kandula is executive vice president and global head of Human Resources at iGATE Corp., a  Fremont, Calif.-based integrated technology and operations (iTOPS) company with operations in Canada. iGATE provides full-spectrum consulting, technology, business process outsourcing, and product & engineering solutions on a Business Outcomes-based model.