HUMAN SERVICES Transforming HR
A Post-Merger HR Transformation Success Story
Background
The organization provides a wide range of services to individuals and families facing various life challenges. These challenges include addiction, aging, autism, brain injury, intellectual disabilities, and mental health issues. This organization, through its various service lines, serves thousands of individuals.
Challenge
A merger between this organization and two agencies resulted in a significant amount of post merger integration work. In an effort to streamline the process and ensure a smooth transition for other departments and consumer-facing staff, the Human Resources function was selected as the first function to be fully integrated. While each organization had distinct strengths to preserve in the newly merged function, this also presented a variety of challenges, including siloed operations and communication between legacy agencies and across functions, inconsistencies in policies and adherence to those policies, and centralizing the recruitment and training functions. If not carefully managed throughout the integration, these challenges could have a significant impact on the organization's ability to effectively serve the community. The organization sought the expertise of Curtis Strategy to address these challenges, build role clarity and team relationships, and optimize its HR functions to better support its mission.
Solution
Curtis Strategy's Human Resources assessment found that the organization had many strengths including a strong HR culture characterized by caring, collaborative, and solutions-oriented individuals. Recommendations were made in the areas of staffing, structure, capabilities, and core process. These included rescoping roles, clarifying roles and reporting lines, adding a new position to support an area of need, investing in training and development, and enhancing communication practices within HR. In addition, the following Strategic Areas for Focus were recommended:
- Communication: Prioritize effective communication strategies, including exploring alternative methods to email, to ensure information reaches all employees
- Training and Development: Invest in training infrastructure, including regional hubs and bilingual options, to enhance accessibility and foster a culture of learning.
- Policy Adherence: Ensure consistent adherence to policies and provide HR staff with clear guidance on exceptions to mitigate risks and maintain credibility
The recommendations provided aim to address the identified challenges and leverage existing strengths to create a more integrated, efficient, and capable HR function. The successful implementation of these recommendations will support the organization in achieving its strategic goals and navigating the complexities of the post merger integration of three organizations.
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