case study: working through a...

Case Study: Working Through A Merger

Mairi Martin Executive Director (Resources)

Riverside Group / Irvine Housing Association

Working Through A Merger


Riverside Group

- 55,000 housing stock

- 2,200 employees

- Operate in England

- English Housing Regulator

- English Care Regulator

Irvine Housing Association

- 2,100 housing stock

- 62 employees

- Operate in Scotland

- Scottish Housing Regulator

- Scottish Care Regulator

The Differences……………………………..


The Similarities……………………………..

• Both organisations want to grow

• A stronger foothold in Scotland

• Build more homes

• Invest in stock

• Gain efficiencies

• Make a difference

• Values match

Comparison

IHA Values Riverside Values

Customer Focus Focusing on Customers

Equality and Diversity Respecting Every Individual

Efficiency Sustainability

Maximising Value, Minimising Waste

Innovation Challenging the Conventional

Valuing People Openness and Integrity

Communicating Positively and Listening to Understand

Improving Quality Working Together

Going For It & Sticking With It

Communication Tips What worked well for this merger?

- Project Board - Made up of key decision makers from both organisations

- Two Project Leaders - One from each organisation

- Communications Working Group - Huge success

- Communication Plan - Very detailed and updated throughout project

- Consultation Events – over 50!

Communication Tips What worked well for this merger?

- Business Plan agreed early

- Defined culture first

- Agreed Values quickly

- Getting the right people to talk to each other

- Dealing with the difficult issues quickly

- Recording all issues and risks which let people know they were being listened to

Communication Tips

What we would do differently next time?

- Get the right people to meet as early in the process as possible

- We only set the Communication Working Group up in Irvine not in Riverside

- Lack of understanding between English and Scottish issues

Communication Tips

It’s good to talk….

Supporting and Engaging Employees


We recognised:

- that the people who are going to bring the partnership together are our people

- that how good the partnership will work from day one will be down to how we support and engage our people

- we needed to increase the level and forums of communication and consultation


What did we do? - absolutely loads…

- Increased Staff Newsletters/Briefing Notes

- Held quarterly briefing sessions

- Regularly met with staff representative group

- Identified for them:

- What it meant (good and bad)

- What the future would look like

- How they would feel


Give them control and trust:

• Staff raised the problems

• Staff looked at the options

• Staff found the solution


What could we have improved on:

- Allowed more time for IT integration

- Huge frustrations

- Invested in coaching for Line Managers

- Have a toolkit for mergers

- Currently being developed


Here’s a video from some of the Irvine staff about what it meant to merge with the Riverside organisation….

Supporting and Engaging Employees How did we get them to be so positive?

- Be honest

- Recognise its difficult

- Appreciate what staff are

going through

- Defined structures early

- Have some fun along the way


- Make promises and deliver them

- Good communications

- Have forums for them to ask questions

- Log and address all issues raised

- Keep the laughter going…

Maintaining Performance


• How do both organisations keep performing during this transitional process that can last years?

• How do both organisations come together to find mutual ground on maintaining key performance indicators?


• We identified 21 business streams that laid out their performance both during and after the merger

• Each business stream had a leader

• We agreed what the key performance indicators were after the merger date

• We reviewed and updated our performance management framework


• We broke integration down into two phases

– Phase 1 – completion due by end of Dec 11

– Phase 2 – completion due by 1 April 12

• We focused our staff conference on employee engagement to improve performance

• We were delighted with the results…


The Best Companies results in the not for profit sector were:

Riverside Group – 88th

Irvine Housing Association – 23rd

Phenomenal achievement given all the challenges facing both organisations pre merger

How did we succeed? We had:

- Leadership from the top

- Staff commitment

- Staff determination

- Decision makers

- Excellent project team

- Great communication

case study: working through a...

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