Silvia Van Dusen

▶0:01HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce.

▶0:43GuestI started my career in an unusual way in HR because I really started in payroll and worked myself through the HR business side after leaving the finance side. So giving me a little bit of a broader perspective from starting in payroll and then benefits and then grew up. I consider myself somebody who grew up in HR and later in my career really did my HR degree and things like that. So I grew up in the business side of finance and then into HR.

▶1:21HostSo as someone who's worked extensively in private equity-backed companies, how does the HR executive role differ in those environments compared to traditional corporate settings?

▶1:32GuestI believe that it's really in a PE setting, when you have a PE sponsor, you really have to be business-focused, very agile, and able to make decisions to create value rapidly. Most of the time, the PE sponsor organizations require that you do a lot of revamping of processes, procedures, and this has to be done quickly because you have a limited time. You're on an expiration date. And you have to find solutions in a best value approach. And sometimes you're looking at more short-term things than long-term incentives and strategies.

▶2:13HostSo can you walk us through the process of preparing a company and its workforce for a potential acquisition and maybe some of the key strategies that you found most effective in, in going through that process?

▶2:27GuestYes, I, some of the things that I found was compliance and good processes are extremely important. It's almost like you can't get out of the gate without those. And then you really have a good culture and an engaged workforce. Without that, you'd be, you're not, you don't have the value add in the organization. You have to really prepare the workforce by transparency and letting them know that you are a PE-sponsored organization, but you have to be present and you have to meet whatever, whether it's you're providing a product, a service to your customer, you have to be mission-focused at the same time as you are preparing for a potential buyer to come get you. It's almost like living in a house that is a constant open house, right? It's gotta be pristine and ready for that sale, but you still have to cook dinner every night. And it's, it is really important to maintain that. Having that transparency with the team members and having them see where you are going and building that trust. As a management team, it's really critical, and it keeps people focused without them wondering what is happening. You tell them, when the time comes, we will tell you what we're doing. Right now, other than that, let's keep it going. Let's keep this organization. We got to grow it. That's our focus here.

▶4:07HostSo you have experience transitioning from being an operator a consultant during the acquisition process. I'm curious what challenges you faced in that transition and how you maintained effectiveness while knowing you were exiting and transitioning to a different role.

▶4:26GuestYes, it's interesting because you, you have this decision maker and building all these procedures and all this growth. And then all of a sudden you have to shift your thinking from a decision maker, strategic leader to somebody who is in a consultative role, and you have to shift your hat. And I think it's good for every HR person to know how to do this because sometimes you have to do it in non-situations like this. And you have to help. It's truly the change management. So you take all those skill sets that you know from change management. And you put them into play in just a different scenario, because now you're managing the change of helping your workforce integrate into another organization. And you have to view yourself as a consultant now, rather than just an HR executive that was there to create. Now you're a consultant to help the other organization be successful. It's maturity, process maturity, and you have to sometimes a little bit of leaving your ego parked at the door because we all love what we have done, right? We are very proud of it. And normally when you exit through an acquisition, it reinforces your success because here was a company willing to pay several multiples to acquire something that the team that you were part of created and was able to build. So it gives you, you have some pride that goes along with that. You have to kind of leave that aside and just be a consultant.

▶6:11HostSylvia, from your experience with Lindquist's acquisition by KBR, what are the most critical factors HR leaders should consider when planning for minimal workforce impact during a merger or an acquisition?

▶6:27GuestOne of the things that was very successful during this merger acquisition was the partnering of the two HR teams and leaders. And you have to create a team, build a team that is willing and able to do that and open to doing that. So it was a connection of creating one team right away. KBR is an excellent organization, and so was Lindquist. Lindquist as an organization, very people-focused, very mission-focused. So when KBR did their due diligence, the alignment of cultures is also very critical. If you have not done a good job in due diligence and the cultures are mismatched, that may be very difficult. So merger is a two-way street. You are— when you're having your company go through a sale like this, you're looking at, you're looking at you're not only the target company, but the companies that are interested in you. And we had— there are always several companies interested, right, in acquisitions like this. You're looking as a company that is selling also to make sure that they're a good match to you as much as they are looking to see if you're a good match to them because that will result in a better integration. Most mergers that are very painful is cultural. It's not the product, it's not the operations that fall apart, it's the cultures that fall apart. Communications, I know this is kind of the drum we all beat all the time, it's like communications, communications, but not only telling people what is going on, but also really listening to the way they're feeling. And addressing those feelings as you're going through. It makes a difference because it starts to develop trust quickly. The other thing that sometimes companies do that made this successful is leaving a core portion of your executive team intact during this integration and let— letting them help you go through the process because they already have the trust of the people. And if they see that connection and they see people saying, we believe in this, people are more apt to incorporate and advance change quicker.

▶9:09HostToby, that's great insight. Curious to get to your perspective now on how your approach to workforce planning has evolved throughout your career.

▶9:19GuestEspecially in environments like this where you know you're going to exit, I tend to— I'm a believer a little bit that sometimes less is more, especially when we're in growth mode. We tend to, and it's not just HR, but as organizations, we tend to start overstaffing to create processes and procedures, and we think we're looking for scalability, so it makes sense, right? We're looking and But sometimes it's not so smart to make the processes too robust, especially if you're planning an exit. You need to realize that whoever's going to buy you most likely is going to be a bigger fish. Very seldom do you have a smaller company come in and buy you. So if you make your processes too robust, you're wasting money and time. So sometimes on the workforce planning, you need to be really thoughtful as to who you're bringing in, why you're bringing them in, and especially with exits, you want to set up your organization to where you have minimal impact to people's layoffs and so forth through this merger. So if you run a little bit of a thinner, meaner organization, you have less trauma on the exit side. It's really important to manage an organization based on merit. So being able to show through analytics that you have the workforce that you have is really the best workforce in your industry that you can afford, right? There are all those elements, but merit, it's important to be able to show that you're running your organization on merit because that sets companies apart and it really helps your workforce planning. So having to manage the development of your people and as you're looking at growth, it's almost like a balance. Like you have to manage the organization like you're never going to exit and you're going to continue to grow, but be ready like you're going to exit tomorrow. It's just balancing those two things.

▶11:32HostSylvia, I'm curious as a follow-up just to get some insight into some of the analytics you're showcasing to demonstrate high performance in an organization in the setting that you described?

▶11:46GuestThere's the normal analytics that you would see in organizations, you know, your turnover rates and so forth. But really, even with turnover, you have to get deeper into it is how often do you lose your customer feedback on your people? How often do you have somebody leave because there was a customer dissatisfaction versus So we, we looked at very, especially at Linquist being an engineering company, right? You're going to get really analytical about certain things. So really looking at the depth of how your people perform and how you're performing to your customers is really critical. And we did a lot of engagement surveys, your standard engagement surveys that everybody does. But really followed up the trends because how much do you listen to your people and how you can take those trends to continue that engagement is because that's what the acquiring company's buying.

▶12:53HostSylvia, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

▶12:57GuestI don't think private equity is for everybody. It's not, not everyone likes it. It has some risk, and most of the time executives have a job with an expiration date, right? That's kind of the way you go in knowing that you'll exit. It means the company gets sold and you leave. That being said, it can be extremely rewarding. You work with really very smart people. Normally your private equity sponsors are top-of-the-line investors that you can learn tremendous things from as to how companies are run and how value is added. The executive teams that are brought together by private equity sponsors are normally very experienced and they have a common purpose from the day they walk in. So the connections are very strong and it's dynamic and engaging. So you have a risk on the one side, you're not working for a privately held company that has all these rules and regulations. And it's sometimes you have to be really agile and things that may not fit for everybody, but it has its tremendous rewards on the other side.

▶14:12HostSylvia, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

▶14:18GuestThank you. Thank you for having me.