Managing a Merger
Mersey Maritime Group was created in 2007 as a result of the merger of The Laird Foundation and Mersey Maritime. It’s well known that, whenever there’s a merger between two companies, there are always HR issues to thrash out. These can be a serious distraction; diverting attention away from core business issues. However, the new organization moved quickly to pre-empt the possibility of problems by instructing Bibby Consulting & Support.
The project required day-to-day input from Bibby Consulting & Support; so an ideal solution presented itself in the shape of locally-based Emma Quinn, who was appointed as the lead consultant. Having enjoyed a varied career in a diversity of management positions prior to joining Bibby Consulting & Support, Emma was ideally equipped to meet the challenges.
Her working life had begun whilst still at school, working part time at McDonald’s. There it was that managers saw her dedication and management potential, fast-tracking her into the company’s Graduate Training Scheme after she graduated from Loughborough University. She rose to the role of Business Manager in less than two years, ultimately accepting responsibility for 50 employees.
Mersey Maritime
Foremost amongst her tasks was mentoring Di Shanks, a successful Administration Manager, newly-appointed to the role of HR Manager for Mersey Maritime. ‘My main focus was in helping Di feel comfortable with the responsibilities and duties that are regularly encountered in HR management’, Emma said. ‘By playing devil’s advocate and providing a regular point of contact for her to discuss any issues that arose, I was able to help Di to build on her management experience and develop her professional confidence, so that she felt well-equipped to deal confidently with issues as they arose.’
Di was glad of the ‘helping hand’: ‘I found it exceptionally useful to be able to email or phone Emma to ask for pointers and advice,’ she said. ‘Emma became a familiar face in the office as she came in to act as a sounding board for my ideas and questions on a regular basis. That’s how we dealt with most of the issues that came up’, Di recalled, ‘but when we needed specific advice, we had Bibby Consulting & Support's 24/ 7 support line to fall back on.’
Emma’s hands-on role at Mersey Maritime Group gave her a unique perspective of the business, which enabled her to develop and deliver job-specific training programmes for senior managers within the company.
What began as an acorn with the introduction of Bibby Consulting & Support has developed, not quite into an oak tree, but into a foundation for success into which the new organisation has been able to take root.
‘We’ve always been very happy with Bibby Consulting & Support's service and the personal relationship we have built up with them over the years,’ Jim Teasdale confirmed ‘and their help, exemplified by the day-to-day input of Emma Quinn, was extraordinarily helpful to us as we navigated through a period of unprecedented change. We aspire to build a world class cluster of maritime businesses. In order to do this we work with partners who are best in class. In my view, they are the best in class for both HR and health and safety advice and support.’
