Thomson’s $18bn acquisition of Reuters brought together two well-established names in the news and financial information business. It also triggered the integration of a workforce of 54,000 people in 550 offices spread over almost 100 countries.
Managing the people issues was clearly going to be a huge challenge for the companies and Deloitte, the consultants chosen to help them. The human resources department had to appoint or confirm a total of 30,000 people in their roles, harmonise benefits plans in 37 countries and carry out a globally-consistent redundancy programme for those people who would not be staying. It also had to develop a new corporate vision.
