Case

A major pharmaceutical organization decided to ‘outsource’ more than 6000 employees who were not part of their core business. The pharma house attached a high importance to the cultural integration of their former employees into the culture of their new employer. This was stipulated as a condition in the sales agreement.

During a brainstorming session with our client, we decided on a core message: Give the new employees a strong sense of purpose, make them understand they are now part of the core business, top line drivers and no longer just a cost factor. The quality of their service determines the success of their organization.

The integration was made difficult by the very different levels of education and the linguistic diversity of the employees to be integrated. We therefore chose an experiential learning-based approach and worked with visually dominated communication.

A core team of managers went through a train-the-trainer program and in turn cascaded this training to more managers at all sites affected by this acquisition. This approach enabled the cultural integration to be completed within a timeframe of around 18 months.