Managing Breakups

Transparency counts in times of change

Breaking up is hard to do. Tougher if you don’t talk about it. For companies going through a major reorganization, or even a split, communication counts. Tracy Keogh, chief human resources officer of HP Inc., should know: in 2015, Hewlett-Packard successfully survived the largest ever technology separation, splitting into two to become HP Inc., and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

With a year to divide a company of 300,000 employees across 120 countries, Keogh wasted no time reaching out to the HP community.

“Day one, we did a pulse survey with the announcement to understand the employee sentiment,” said Keogh during an October 2015 Questrom Dean’s Speaker Series panel with Jon Flaxman, chief operating officer of HP Inc., and Chris Hsu, chief operating officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

The results revealed 70 percent of employees were either positive or neutral. Then the questions rolled in: What’s going to happen to me? What company will I work for? Where am I going to sit?

Keogh said they managed an enormous amount of back-and-forth communication throughout the process, including monthly polls—to find out what people were thinking and where they had issues—and calls, where anyone in the company could ask Keogh and other leaders questions about the split.

“They just wanted to hear our voices,” said Keogh. “People got very excited because of the communication and how much we were engaging around the opportunities at both companies.”

Keogh noted that there was a less than 5 percent turnover in top talent—an impressive stat even during a normal year.