In September 2015, RehabWorks bought Right Management Workplace Wellness from Right Management, a ManpowerGroup company.
As soon as the deal was announced, the HR teams from both organisations started to think about how to approach the benefits issue, and decided to initially adopt a period of parallel working. Jayne Carrington, managing director of what is now Workplace Wellness, says: “It gives us the opportunity to assess the level of benefits that both organisations have and to consult and evaluate the impact of any changes.”
Crucially, this has also allowed Carrington to say to her team that no one will be joining on worse terms. “For example, Right Management staff had a higher level of [private] medical insurance [cover] than we now have in RehabWorks, so RehabWorks paid over and above for a new scheme just for Right Management employees,” she says.
Over the next few months, the two teams will decide how to proceed around harmonising benefits. Much of this will come from discussions with staff. “We’re going to ask which benefits really make a difference to them and, if it comes down to a budgetary conversation, then what would they like to keep,” says Carrington.
