A Guide to Redesigning Your Org After a Merger

Mergers often promise efficiency, scale, and growth. But those outcomes depend heavily on how well the combined organization is designed. The real challenge is bringing together two sets of people, processes, and structures into one organization that can deliver on the merger strategy.

Going through a merger? Access trusted benchmarks here

Effective operational and workforce planning sits at the heart of that process. It’s what turns ambition into alignment and ensures the merged company operates efficiently without losing key talent or capability.

Table of Contents

• Headcount Benchmarking During Post-Merger Integration
• 5 Steps to Rightsizing Your Organization After a Merger
• Conducting a Functional Redundancy Assessment
• Workforce Planning Tools for Post-Merger Organizations
• Aligning Roles and Responsibilities Across Merged Entities
• Final Thoughts on a Successful Merger

Headcount Benchmarking During Post-Merger Integration

One of the first questions after a merger is, what should the new organization look like? Two separate businesses often have different ways of structuring teams and allocating headcount. Without an external reference point, it’s often difficult to know whether the merged entity is over or under-resourced.

Headcount benchmarking provides that context by comparing the combined organization’s size and structure to relevant peers at that scale. It helps leaders make informed decisions about team sizes, management layers, and efficiency opportunities.

Here are some common headcount benchmarks that you can use:

• Headcount by function – The type of benchmark varies based on the function that you’re evaluating. For example, a commercial function like Sales where headcount is typically driven by revenue should use a benchmark like Sales FTEs per $1B revenue. Meanwhile, a function where people are the key headcount driver (e.g. HR), should use a relevant benchmark like the HR to employee ratio.
• Span of control – This simply refers to the average number of direct reports per manager, which is a useful way to find whether the employee hierarchy in the combined organization should be streamlined.

By using headcount data as a reference point, leaders can identify where duplication exists, where teams may be too lean, and where the merged organization can achieve efficiencies without compromising capability.

Explore trusted headcount benchmarks for any merger

5 Steps to Rightsizing Your Organization After a Merger

Rightsizing is one of the most sensitive parts of any merger. While some think it's just about cutting costs, it’s actually more about creating the right structure for future growth. The aim is to balance operational efficiency with capability retention, in order to ensure that the organization is fit for purpose as it moves forward.

Based on my experience, approaching rightsizing thoughtfully helps to protect employee morale and ensure business continuity during the integration period. Here are five key steps to get started with rightsizing:

1. Start with the strategy - Define the merged company’s goals before making any changes. The right size for the organization depends on where it’s headed. Don’t skip this step, otherwise there’s a risk that any changes may leave the organization worse off.
2. Map duplication - Identify overlapping teams and roles, particularly in shared services and administrative functions. This is usually best performed by the department heads of the larger organization. It’s critical to consider the operating model, technology stack, and business processes of both organizations, not just mapping the roles in isolation.
3. Retain critical skills - Protect roles that are essential for innovation, customer relationships, and future growth. This usually works best with the HR team as project managers, but the roles with critical skills identified by the department heads as part of the mapping process.
4. External benchmarking – Steps 2 and 3 involve internal assessments from department heads and HR. Now it’s time to cross-check their internal assessment to external benchmarks. These benchmarks will provide a view on whether department heads have gone too far, or not far enough, when it comes to setting their target state department headcount. Refer to the previous section for more information on benchmarking and the metrics you can use.
5. Be transparent – The last step is to ensure that there is a strong focus on transparency with staff during this period of uncertainty. Clear communication reduces stress for employees and helps maintain trust through the process. This is especially important when looking beyond the merger period and thinking about those employees who stay on.

Rightsizing is most successful when it’s grounded in both internal understanding and external context. Combining headcount analysis and benchmarking, functional mapping, and open communication builds confidence in the process and its outcomes.

Conducting a Functional Redundancy Assessment

When two companies merge, it’s inevitable that certain functions will overlap. Two HR teams, two finance departments, and two tech stacks, so these redundancies can slow decision-making and inflate costs if they're not addressed quickly. A functional redundancy assessment allows leaders to pinpoint where integration can deliver meaningful efficiencies.

This assessment doesn’t just look at numbers - it evaluates structure, systems, and process maturity to ensure that the new organization keeps what works best from each legacy business. A structured redundancy assessment typically involves:

• Mapping functional structures across both entities to identify any overlap in roles and teams. See the previous section for more information about this.
• Comparing maturity and performance, by asking which team has the stronger capabilities or more efficient processes.
• Evaluating technology and workflows to identify duplication and integration opportunities.
• Deciding on the target operating model (such as centralization vs. decentralization), based on the business strategy and customer needs from both pre-existing businesses.

By using clear criteria, decisions about which roles or teams to retain become objective and defensible. This process also helps avoid the common trap of cutting too deeply in one area while leaving inefficiencies untouched elsewhere.

Workforce Planning Tools for Post-Merger Organizations

Each company typically has its own system for tracking employees, costs, and reporting lines across different HR and finance platforms. Trying to consolidate this information manually can quickly become overwhelming, leading to inconsistencies, errors, and delays in critical decisions.

That’s where workforce planning tools come in. They provide a structured way to visualize, model, and manage your organization’s people data throughout the integration process. The goal is not just to create an org chart, but to enable real-time analysis of how different structural decisions affect headcount, cost, and capability. Some of the most common use cases include:

• Integration mapping: Aligning two organizational structures and identifying overlapping roles or redundant reporting lines.
• Cost analysis: Modeling salary, benefit, and overhead implications for various structural scenarios.
• Team optimization: Visualizing spans of control to identify where management layers can be streamlined.
• Headcount forecasting: Projecting staffing needs as integration milestones are reached and new processes take hold.
• Communication planning: Creating visual org charts that can be easily shared with leaders and employees as structures evolve.

When properly implemented, workforce planning tools help merge not only data but also decision-making. They enable HR and finance leaders to collaborate effectively, align on the new organization’s structure, and adapt plans as integration progresses.

Aligning Roles and Responsibilities Across Merged Entities

Once structure and headcount are settled, the next challenge is clarity. This involves making sure that everyone knows their role in the new organization. Without clear accountability, merged teams can become bogged down by confusion, duplication, or missed responsibilities.

Aligning roles and responsibilities reinforces the new operating model, and keeps people focused on shared goals. It’s also one of the most effective ways to rebuild engagement after a merger. Here are some things to keep in mid:

• Map key roles from both legacy organizations, highlighting overlaps and dependencies.
• Define ownership and accountability. Frameworks like RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) can help clarify who leads, who supports, and who decides.
• Reconfirm governance structures. Ensure decision-making authority is clearly assigned for critical areas such as budgets, approvals, and cross-functional projects.
• Communicate widely and repeatedly. Provide updated job descriptions and hold role clarification sessions to make sure everyone understands where they fit.

This process takes time, but it’s essential for productivity and collaboration. Clear roles and aligned responsibilities turn the new structure into a functioning organization.

Be informed with your merger – Leverage benchmarks

Final Thoughts on a Successful Merger

A merger is one of the few opportunities an organization has to completely rethink how it operates. It’s a moment to align structure with strategy, eliminate inefficiencies, and create a foundation for sustainable growth.

Redesigning your organization after a merger isn’t just about combining two charts into one. It’s about designing a structure that reflects your new strategic priorities, supports your people, and enables the business to deliver on the promise of the merger.