Following Santander's acquisitions of Alliance and Leicester and Bradford and Bingley in 2008/09, Mark Adams (pictured), UK HR director at the Spanish bank, addressed delegates at the HR Forum on board the Arcadia yesterday.
Adams, who has been shortlisted for the accolade of HR director of the year by HR magazine, said: "We were already on track to buy Alliance and Leicester, but Bradford and Bingley happened very quickly. Staff left work for Bradford and Bingley on a Friday night and when they arrived on Monday, two thirds were suddenly employees of Santander."
The bank, which merged with Abbey in 2004, was no stranger to the merger and acquisitions process, but Adams added: "Abbey is now very moulded into the Santander way, but from an HR point of view it was not easy to control the bank in a consistent way. Bradford and Bingley had a completely different culture to the rest of the organisation. It needed a lot of TLC and we had to make this a priority.
"We couldn't live in the past, but had to move very quickly into the future."
Employee engagement was key for Adams, but although in 2009 favourable engagement feedback from Abbey employees had increased by 16%, in Alliance and Leicester it had increased by only 1% and for Bradford and Bingley in the middle of 2009 engagement levels dropped to 39%.
Adams said: "In 2008 following the merger, staff were pleased to have a job but were struggling to get used to new systems and although we told them things would be better under Santander, they struggled to believe it."
The HR department worked closely with union representatives and once they were on side the unions were able to help with employee communications. Managers from Bradford and Bingley were also sent to spend time at Santander's head office in Madrid to familiarise themselves with technology systems.
Adams explained: "Staff realised Santander's systems would make their lives a lot easier. We made the training process more efficient and consistently told staff where we were going as well as giving them some slack in terms of targets."
By the end of 2009, engagement levels among Bradford and Bingley had increased by 17%.
Adams said: "There is only one way of doing things following a merger - but a lot of ways of dressing that up using nice words. You have to do your best to face the issues quickly because if staff don't buy in, they become terrorists."
It is expected by the end of the year, all Bradford and Bingley branches will be rebranded as Santander, but Adams suggested his work on mergers and acquisitions is not over yet.
Concluding, Adams added: "If you are to believe what you read in the press another merger will take place sooner rather than later - and I am looking forward to it immensely
