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A 40-year-old company is acquired by a 100-year-old company. Both companies have strong cultures.

The acquiring company's chief people officer establishes a team of business and HR professionals from both companies to assess their respective cultures and develop and enact an integration strategy. The HR director from the acquired company is asked to serve as that company's lead representative on the integration team.

A few weeks into the integration team's work, the HR director notices significant differences between the companies' cultures. While some aspects of the companies' cultures seem to be merging, many of the acquiring company's cultural norms are taking precedence as the united culture is being solidified. This situation is being fueled by the fact that a majority of the newly selected executive team members are leaders from the acquiring company.

How should the HR director go about preparing employees of the acquired company for the forthcoming cultural changes?

A successful global energy company attracts entrepreneurial candidates with the desire to be highly compensated through an aggressive and competitive rewards program. Incentive pay is determined through a forced ranking system managed at each business unit through open group discussions about individual employee performance and contribution. The organization's structure is relatively flat; therefore, business units are empowered to adjust the unit strategy and approach as needed.

A highly analytical executive vice president (EVP) of the most productive business unit consistently states that managers are unnecessary as only leaders will advance and be rewarded. In this unit, employees are challenged to lead and to demonstrate innovation in all facets of the work. Employees who receive poor performance reviews often leave the organization, as they are ignored by leadership. As a result, turnover is high in this unit, but there is always a steady flow of candidates ready to fill vacancies due to its success.

During the performance review period, a new VP in this unit becomes fearful of being categorized as a manager versus a leader and decides to speak with the HR director to obtain guidance. The HR director recognizes that similar concerns have been captured in exit interviews and the annual survey.

With the high turnover in the EVP's business unit, the HR director is concerned about succession planning. Which action will best assist in succession planning efforts?

The sales department of a company is in the midst of reorganization. An important factor in the decision to reorganize was the president's concern over lagging sales and missed targets for the past two years and a desire to restructure the compensation plan for this group. Once the reorganization was announced, the director of the sales group resigned. This gave the company the opportunity to restructure the leadership of this area, resulting in a new vice president (VP) of sales being hired, replacing the former one.

As part of the new VP's onboarding, the HR director updates the VP on the sales reorganizing activities to date and on employee performance in the area. He also shares the proposed structural changes and indicates that the former VP sales leader may have shared these plans prematurely with the sales staff. The plans include possible staff reductions and ending unprofitable customer relationships.

What actions should the HR director take to demonstrate an understanding of the priorities of both the sales function and the organization?