Three Key Considerations To Help EHS Leaders Navigate Change Management During M&A

Three Key Considerations To Help EHS Leaders Navigate Change Management During M&A

Undergoing mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are often a fact of life for many firms. For the EHS leaders of the involved firms, the change management efforts to harmonize EHS practices between acquired firms can pose significant challenges. Merging two EHS practices is a multifaceted task, with people, process, and technology considerations having to be accounted for by leaders before developing new EHS strategies. Verdantix has priorly outlined the best practices for EHS digitization projects extensively, but for firms undergoing M&A, the added complexity of accounting for two sets of EHS teams, often with drastically different processes, requirements, mindsets and existing EHS software architecture, makes the importance of change management paramount.

Each M&A case has its nuances, meaning there are several ways firms can tackle joining distinct EHS practices. For firms acquiring a much smaller entity, there is a much larger case for fully absorbing the EHS practice of the smaller practice within the existing systems and processes. This is not certain for all cases, especially for smaller entities with drastically different EHS requirements, where allowing them to retain their own internal practices can be the most sensible course of action. In the case of the mergers of two similarly sized entities, firms face a harder challenge to adapt technology, processes and mindsets to result in a holistic, connected EHS practice.

Irrelevant of the type of M&A deal, firms should assign time and resources to three key focus areas to promote seamless EHS integration. Requirements gathering and process mapping is a vital first step to take stock of the two organisations. Firms should detail their compliance requirements, in addition to the formatting and procedures behind their reporting, audits and inspections. Documenting these key processes allow both firms to start on the same page when developing a shared EHS solution. Secondly, firms should draw attention to consolidating their digital infrastructures onto a single platform. This may not necessarily mean choosing a single software provider, but instead ensuring data pathways are consistent in formatting and flow into the same data lake, an essential foundation for strong analytics (see Verdantix Best Practices For EHS Analytics). Lastly, newly merged firms must take action to redevelop a safety culture amongst employees that suit both parties. Each firm will naturally have its own way of managing safety, EHS leaders must leverage strong training programmes to instill a ‘one team’ mindset when managing risks on site (see Verdantix Best Practices For Digital Training).