Culture & change: standalone vs HR integrated
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From your experience, do you believe culture and change management in an M&A programme should be managed as a separate project with its own governance, or integrated within the HR workstream? What are the key advantages and disadvantages of each approach?
In my experience, change management is a separate and distinct workstream from both culture and HR. Change management has its own expertise and is often driven by the business/localized needs, whereas HR is typically focused on compliance and personnel-related issues and needs at more of enterprise-level. Additionally, culture should never be “owned” by a particular function. HR doesn’t “own” culture; it’s driven (certainly with input from HR and other areas of the business) by all areas of the business and all levels of the org. Culture should be an intentional and separate body of work – with representation that reflects the broader org, “top down and bottom up” – and from both the buyer as well as the target.
If the integration is strategically important and culturally complex, treat culture and change as a separate, visible program that partners closely with HR. For smaller, routine integrations, HR can own culture/change. The hybrid model — specialist strategic leadership with HR-enabled execution — often delivers the best balance of authority, expertise, and practical implementation.
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