The Impact of Personnel Decisions on the Success of the Organizational Change

A Review of Management Options

When forming an integration team and making appointments to various positions in the new structure, there are two important parameters to consider that affect the success of organizational change: first, how personnel perceives the fairness of personnel decisions and, second, the speed with which these decisions take place. When personnel decisions become delayed, the stress level in the organization increases due to uncertainty. 

There are four basic methods that management can use, and their advantages and disadvantages should be well understood. The first option (the simplest) is to assign a new leader to each area of responsibility, who must recruit his or her team. This is a very quick solution, but such a manager is likely to favor employees from his organization when forming a team, simply because he knows more about them, and as a result, valuable personnel from the other partner will be left out. 

The second option is to appoint two specialists to each key position: representatives of both merging companies. In this case, the problems are the opposite – although such a «duo» of managers will have a complete idea of suitable candidates for their team from both organizations, there can be friction within, the decision-making process can be delayed or lead to compromise, resulting in a less-effective end result.  

A third option – evaluation of managers by an independent third party, such as a recruiting or consulting company, offers the most effective and objective staffing decisions, although, of course, the method requires more time to implement. 

The fourth method is to distribute a company-wide announcement of new job openings. This allows you to find talented and active managers who are interested in the success of the integration. However, this method also requires time to process all internal applications for vacancies, and in addition, it may contradict the employee promotion policy practiced/adopted in a particular company. 

Thus, company management needs to choose the principle of team building depending on specific goals and opportunities and, just as importantly, communicate this principle to all employees before starting personnel reshuffles.