People in deals

Bringing focus to your people strategy along the deal journey

Your people are a key component to ensuring your transaction is successful and delivers its expected value. They play a critical role in adopting new technologies, integrating teams and workplace culture, which in turn drives increased productivity. While the financial aspects of the deal receives the most attention, opportunities to focus on the people strategy of a deal are often forgotten.

Our People in Deals specialists can help your people get comfortable with their new future during an acquisition, divestiture, business restructuring or capital event like an Initial Public Offering (IPO). The heart of your business is its people. We help you drive long-term value across the entire deal cycle by supporting the human side of deals transactions.

Sean Rowe

Partner, National Leader, Value Creation

How we can help

HR due diligence

People impact the value of a transaction

Ongoing employee relations issues. High turnover. Key talent succession and retention. Leadership and culture. These are all examples of people matters which may impact the success of a transaction.

We help our clients to identify HR issues that may affect the price of their deal. We work with you to identify and understand critical HR and workforce issues early in the transaction, quantify their relevance and ensure material considerations are clearly documented and brought to the forefront. We also provide early insight into culture and other challenges that may pose a threat to the success of the transaction.

Areas of focus include:

  • HR regulatory issues
  • Employee and industrial relations
  • Leadership and workforce demographics
  • HR function / workforce benchmarking
  • Side-by-side view of employee terms, fits and HR policies
  • Compensation, pensions, and benefits review
  • Potential synergies

HR pre-deal close and day-1 readiness

Day 1 sets the tone

With the deal set in motion, you need to plan with a people lens. What talent can you not afford to lose? Will there be cultural differences post integration? Who will lead and are they ready?

We help our clients ensure they have the right leadership in place with the right objectives. We identify key strategic HR decisions required based on the nature of the transaction, including leveraging HR due diligence findings to create a comprehensive plan to support the transition to Day-1 operations. We help our clients define their leadership team, organization structure, assess culture, and identify change impacts to be addressed through specific strategies.

Areas of focus include:

  • Day-1 planning
  • Leadership assessment
  • Key talent retention
  • Workforce transition
  • Communication and stakeholder planning
  • Culture assessment and integration
  • Synergy identification
  • HR function design and service delivery model
  • Total rewards – benefits, compensation, incentives, and pensions

HR post-close integration

Adopt to the new way of working

The deal is done, but communication and integration doesn’t stop. Do your people know what they need to do in this new business to be successful? Are there programs in place to help them along this journey?

We focus on organizational values to reflect our clients desired purpose, mission, and vision. We help our clients implement a targeted and sustainable HR solution that will stretch beyond Day-1 and into the future.

Areas of focus include:

  • Culture-led change
  • Stakeholder engagement, communications, and change management
  • Broader leadership development and team building post-close
  • HR strategy and alignment
  • Organization workforce and talent optimization
  • HR operating model and service delivery design
  • HR function transformation, technology, and workforce analytics
  • Reward and performance optimization

Contact us

Sean Rowe

Sean Rowe

National Deals Markets and Value Creation Leader, PwC Canada

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