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ISSUE 247 – Synopsis – May 2025
Mergers & acquisitions
Businesses navigated out of a perfect storm and into a perfect fog of protracted, sluggish economy and ongoing uncertainty in markets, which have made leaders edgy and shareholders short on patience. Consequently, M&As are predicted to surge in 2025, driven by pent up ambition, increased margin pressure and the quest for scale and inorganic growth – in the face of insipid organic growth – in the hope of catalysing revenues and profit through diversification. Companies that have been waiting for markets to reignite, are redefining their remit and seeking M&As that are more obtuse and disruptive, rather than looking for usual compatible alliances and growing share in their existing and known markets. Rather, they are trying to strike strategically symbiotic partnerships to unlock untried market possibilities and this inevitably means a clash of cultures and motivations. Typically, established and more conservative firms are colliding with disruptor startups and the conventional reasons for alliance are not clearly defined or immediately obvious. When the dust settles, mutual parties are increasingly left with the uncertainty of what the M&A represents and is attempting to achieve. The statistics speak volumes, the current state of 70-75 percent M&A failure, demands closer scrutiny. In this issue, we are exploring the issues that are challenging symbiotic corporate alliances, whether HR’s role is meeting the rigours of M&A disruption, what role culture plays out in the transitional process, how AI and technology is influencing decision-making and whether the fundamental raison d’être for M&As is the catalyst for failure.
Productivity
Productivity, once a binary gauge of contribution and a benchmark of direct and discretionary effort and input, is now a lightning rod for the world of work, deciding the future for millions of workers. Opposing viewpoints have led to immutable decisions across the corporate space, where roughly half of businesses are committed to the new freedoms and flexibilities, while the other half – including some surprising high-profile radicals – are snapping back to time-and-place conventional norms, giving unambiguous diktats to workforces that their brief sojourn in a halcyon hinterland is over. According to a Microsoft survey, the fundamental reason for the demands for a return to work are starkly unequivocal, with findings revealing that 85 percent of leaders say that “the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive.” Further down the chain, 49 percent of line managers of hybrid workers state that they, “struggle to trust their employees to do their best work”. This surely points to a breakdown in trust writ large, fuelling productivity paranoia, that lost productivity is due to employees not working, even though activity metrics have increased, along with work-fuelled cases of stress and burnout. Plaudits for hybrid and remote working predicted that talent would leave in droves from any employer restricting freedoms, in favour of firms that continue to support flexible and remote working, but there is no sign of an exodus for this reason. The pros and cons of hybrid and remote working around productivity have been discussed, surveyed and analysed more than any other aspect of the world of work and statistics are predictably varied and cryptic around whether productivity is better or worse in a hybrid/remote working setting. It has led to debate and conjecture around what is fundamentally being measured in productivity – input/output – in what is unquestionably a complex and acutely contradictory evolving dynamic.
Onboarding in a hybrid world
Sixty-six percent of HR leaders believe that their organisation needs to do more to attract, recruit and onboard in a hybrid world globally. Remote onboarding is nothing new of course, but success rates, lost talent percentages and negative attitudes from candidates are raising alarms in HR and across recruitment. Indeed, according to research, candidates that are dissatisfied and frustrated by an increasingly closed face, dehumanised and mechanised process leads to confusion and doubt at the critical stage of onboarding. Unquestionably, AI presents a compelling solution in the process in which new hires are integrated, calibrated to carry out background checks, complete new-hire orientation and deliver learning about the company’s corporate culture, mission statement and values. It can also provide new hires with the tools and resources, but a decrease in human contact is causing recruits to jettison from the process at the final moment. This suggests that a fully-systemised onboarding process that may be seamless, is also impersonable without human contact. Here, research results are unequivocal, with new hires who feel they are ignored by their new managers and colleagues, assuming that it indicates the overall culture and employee experience. Further, a Harris Poll showed that 68 percent believe their experience as a job candidate directly reflects how a company treats its people. The study also found that half of new hires continued looking for other jobs, even after an offer was extended and they were undergoing their background checks. The consequent volte face has resulted in nearly 70 percent of employers reporting that almost a quarter of new hires failed to show up after accepting a position, negating much of the time and resource savings from a machine-driven system.
Purpose redefined
Was the so-called great resignation really a revolution driven by a work/life epiphany or is it, as one of our esteemed Editorial Panelists suggests, people changing jobs for higher salaries? That values-based purpose attracts and retains talent is a noble assumption, but it is only part of the big picture. How realistic is it in a protracted cost-of-living crisis, where the proportion of 24–35-year-olds still living with their parents, has increased by more than a third in 20 years, that employees want to be paid enough to meet the basic aspirations of owning a property and supporting a family? There is some status-quo thinking that it is both salary and values-orientated drivers that defines purpose and one theory that forward-looking employers are running with, is that a combination of inequity of reward and not understanding motivations correctly, is leading to a misalignment of organisation and individual purpose. The incoming generation of talent wants to be proud of its employer, but it also places a high value on its own net worth and demands to be renumerated fairly for its effort. That is not to say that talent is not super-receptive to corporate purpose, indeed studies has shown that increasingly, searches for new jobs include an employer’s track record on DEI, as well as a business impact on its local communities, along with the wider social, political and environmental issues. So, in this issue, we are delving into what are the impacts of purpose redefined and as with all of our subjects this issue, we welcome your synopsis for potential articles.
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