One Response

1. Staff integration
   Hi Gareth

   I used to work for a national multi-site retail operation where we frequently grew through acquisitions, often buying a small chain of businesses. In those circumstances, as well as seeing all the staff individually, we held evening welcome events. These were designed to be fun as well as allowing the new people to meet current staff. We would invite key members of the regional support team as well as a number of current staff. We then allowed people to mix and ask whatever questions they wanted directly to the people concerned in a more social situation. Because this wasn’t an open forum Q&A session but they were talking one to one or in small groups people often felt more comfortable about asking questions and as they were talking to their counterparts, they probably got more honest answers as well.

   We also did a half day session on Change and how it would feel and how they could support themselves through the period of change.

   One of the things you could do in your one hour session is get people to explore how they think it might feel for the new people and what suggestions they have for making the transition as smooth and comfortable as possible. After all, we’ve all been the ‘new boy or girl’ at some point in our lives.

   Hope this helps

   Regards

   Sue