Recent work · Financial services
Post-acquisition cultural alignment in eight weeks.
A UK specialist mortgage lender, integrating an acquisition without losing what made either side work.
What was in the way
The business had completed an acquisition, and it revealed a series of cultural challenges. On paper the two cultures looked similar; in practice they had very different ways of working, and the parent group's values didn't resonate for the merged UK business. To make the acquisition a lasting success, they needed a way to bridge the two cultures while keeping a consistent thread to the wider group.
What we did
We got under the skin of both cultures through interviews, focus groups and a bespoke cultural assessment, then designed a set of cultural principles aligned to the parent group, a practical framework of expected behaviours (including the regulatory compliance requirements), and changes to the policies, processes and governance that would reinforce them. We embedded it through team-based workshops at scale and manager masterclasses, so leaders could own the change.
What changed
Employee satisfaction rose from 7.5 to 9.5 out of 10 after the change, and the customer review score improved too. 98% of employees said continuing the team-based embedding sessions would build a brighter future. The business launched a new internal learning initiative, and teams now run regular culture review cycles.