Key Strategies for HR Leaders During Acquisitions: Insights from Cherry Bekaert's Chief People Officer

HOST: We are back. We've been on a bit of a hiatus. It's been almost six months since the last episode of Talking Talent, but we are excited to be back on track.

We will be planning a new episode monthly throughout 2024, maybe even more than one a month. I don't want to set expectations too high, so we will aim for at least one a month in 2024.

This 13th episode features a new colleague of mine, the Chief People Officer at Cherry Bekaert, Lindsay McCarty. We cover a few timely topics, including how to navigate acquisitions as an HR leader and how Cherry Bekaert thrives in a flexible work model.

I hope you enjoy the episode. Thank you, everyone, for joining this 13th episode of Talking Talent. This is Sam McCarthy. I really appreciate you listening.

If you enjoy this episode, remember you can subscribe on Spotify. You can find it on the Cordia Resources website, and soon you will be able to find it on other platforms.

We had a bit of a break; our last episode was in July. We had done 12 episodes in about a year and a half.

We took a break because it coincided with some exciting news for Cordia Resources and the Partners group. That news also involves our guest today.

As some of you may know, Cordia Resources and Partners was acquired by Cherry Bekaert this fall. This is really exciting for us, as it gives us a chance to enhance our service offerings and grow in other geographies.

I am very lucky to be joined today by Lindsay McCarty, who is the Chief People Officer at Cherry Bekaert. She has been in this role since March of 2021, a little over two and a half years.

I have gotten to know Lindsay a bit in the past few months, but I am excited to learn even more during this conversation. Lindsay, thank you for joining me today.

LINDSAY MCCARTY: Thanks for having me, Sam.

HOST: People can look you up on LinkedIn or the website, but could you give everyone a quick idea about your background and how you got into the role you are in today?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: Absolutely. I have been here at Cherry Bekaert as the Chief People Officer since March of 2021.

Prior to that, I spent about 16 years in a Big Four environment working across different parts of Human Resources. I started my career in campus recruiting and spent about three years doing that in the Mid-Atlantic region.

I spent a lot of time on the road at career fairs, getting to know what was important to students entering their careers. I parlayed that into more of a business partner type of role.

I moved into that position and had the opportunity to work with probably 3,000 to 4,000 internal clients across different parts of the business at that firm.

I worked on the full scale and scope of Human Resources, including global projects and initiatives. All of that gave me a good understanding of the breadth and scope of everything you can do to enhance the employee experience from an HR perspective.

HOST: When you were looking for something new, how did you become interested in the role at Cherry Bekaert, and why did you think that was the right move for you?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: It is funny because I had worked at my prior firm for so many years. I had very strong relationships, and that is what kept me there as long as I did.

I continued to grow and have different experiences, so I was not even thinking about leaving until a headhunter reached out to me a couple of years before I decided to make the move.

They were interested in talking to me about a CHRO position at a small accounting firm. Until then, it hadn't even crossed my mind that I should consider it.

I had some initial conversations and then decided to keep my eye on the market and be a bit more curious about what opportunities I could have from a career perspective.

It was a long process—about two years from that point to when I finally decided to make a move. I felt I had a decade and a half of experience in the accounting profession.

I wanted to continue to leverage everything I knew about professional services and accounting, so I wanted to stay in an accounting firm.

However, I was attracted to the idea of being able to make a greater impact, which you can have in a firm this size compared to a very large global organization. That is what ultimately motivated me.

HOST: Thank you for sharing that. I work with candidates at all levels, but many at the director level and up want to change industries drastically.

They might have been in an organization for a long time, maybe in professional services, and suddenly want to work for a tech startup or a nonprofit.

It is hard to make a transition if you have only been in one place. You moved to a similar organization in terms of industry, albeit smaller and more dynamic.

One of the questions I get is how to ensure experience and relationships are versatile enough to switch industries. People often say HR is HR anywhere.

That can be true to an extent, but it can be valued differently in different places. I am glad you had that good experience.

Taking a step back, I am curious about when you first entered the workforce. Is there any correlation between an early job and what you are doing now?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: I definitely would never have imagined I would end up in HR, so in a practical sense, no.

However, growing up, my dad always said I should be a CPA someday. For years, he always said that about me because I liked numbers and working with data.

In some ways, it is funny that I ended up working in an accounting firm two decades later, just on a different side of it.

My first real job was a summer in high school. My dad owned a small local business with about 10 to 15 employees working in a retail environment.

There was an individual at his firm who wore a million different hats as an office manager and finance department head. She was going on maternity leave for the summer.

I moved in and made minimum wage to fill in for her. In that role, I had to do all the accounts payable, receivable, and payroll.

I had to follow up with larger local companies that were not paying their bills promptly. I saw the life cycle for a small business and how difficult it is to make ends meet.

I saw the impact when one person has to be out sick. In many ways, that gave me an introduction to the professional working world.

HOST: Someone with little experience in retail or a family business might think dealing with people every day looks easy.

However, if things go wrong, customers do not care if you are 17 years old and working part-time. You have to figure out the problem.

That is a valuable skill set to be exposed to when you are young. My parents were both teachers, and I thought being a teacher would be cool.

My parents said it can be, but unfortunately, teachers do not make nearly as much money as they should. You should aspire to be a teacher, but keep that in mind.

For a long time, I thought I wanted to teach. Maybe in the future, I can teach or coach when I have more time. What kind of business did your father have?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: It was office furniture. They would sell to a big local university and other local businesses.

If a company was renovating their office space, they provided the furniture. Installations, ordering, and sales were all rolled into a very small environment.

HOST: Experiencing calling someone because they haven't paid their bill is uncomfortable regardless of how old you are. You grow up really quickly in those conversations.

LINDSAY MCCARTY: It is interesting about your interest in being a teacher. My mom was a teacher, and I always thought that was what I wanted to be as well.

At one point in my HR career, I started taking classes to become a teacher. Similar to you, as I thought about the realities compared to where I was, I decided not to pursue it.

However, we do that in our roles, too. It is part of what we do with training and HR. Adults are the students, but the skill sets overlap.

HOST: It was always weird to me because my parents both had summers off. I assumed nobody's parents worked in the summer.

We would pick up my friends for baseball practice because their parents worked and were not teachers.

That was the appetizing part of it, but now I feel like teachers might only have a month and a half off. That is another conversation we could have.

Let's get into acquisitions. This is my first time being in a company acquired by a larger company and going through the process of integrating.

I know Cherry Bekaert has acquired several different companies this year. What is your experience leading the people function during the integration of new people?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: There is so much to unpack related to acquisitions. At the starting point, there are two different aspects.

First, there is the business integration. There is a strategic reason two firms decide to go down that path together.

They look for opportunities to do more together than they could apart. This involves understanding business components through due diligence and cultural similarities.

We look at everything down to the policy differences and how they are utilized by employees. There is a very small window to fully delve into what a business is.

The other side of things is truly the employee experience. For leaders and the core team, they go through the diligence process for weeks or months.

By the time they announce it, they have worked through their own change management considerations. For the typical employee, an acquisition is brand-new, shocking news on the day they receive it.

They haven't had the benefit of all that background. It is important to express excitement about the deal while recognizing it is a lot for someone to absorb.

In that situation, an employee doesn't have much agency; this is being done to them. Understanding what they are experiencing and getting feedback is important.

Every deal is different. Some firms are local and office-based, while others are dispersed. Foundationally, those considerations are the same regardless of the details.

HOST: I have been impressed with how smoothly everything has gone and how streamlined the communications and training were.

Did you have to advocate for the People and Culture team to structure the team differently or ask for more resources to support these acquisitions?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: Cherry Bekaert has always had a strong acquisition strategy. However, we have moved into doing more acquisitions rapidly over the last 12 to 14 months.

We had historic knowledge, but as we ramped up the speed, we created a centralized team about 15 months ago to focus on corporate development and project management.

In People and Culture, we identified key roles that need to be involved in the process. We are continuing to iterate and evolve that over time.

The key to any acquisition activity is getting smarter every time. Having a playbook to start with—how you approach things, what information you gather, and how you approach the employee experience—is a big part of the process.

We then take feedback from employees and incorporate that into process improvements. This fall, we introduced a three-part series of onboarding surveys for acquired employees so we can get real-life feedback.

HOST: I work with some clients who have lean HR and talent acquisition teams, and they acquire mid-sized companies. Leadership often tries to do more with less.

I joke with my accountant friends that accounting teams are huge while the HR side often feels understaffed.

It is important to have conversations about how to develop the right team and put people in the best positions to succeed.

Sometimes people are doing tasks outside of their job description, and it can be crazy. I am glad to hear about the resources Cherry Bekaert has put into it.

Since COVID-19 began in March 2020, a lot of things changed. We are now approaching four years since that started.

Changes in terms of a company's work model and how they want to run the organization have been significant.

When you joined Cherry Bekaert in March 2021, a year after the pandemic started, what did the environment look like?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: That was an interesting time to move into a new role. In March of 2021, a lot of people were still working 100% remotely.

Professional services firms had a full gamut, with some in the office and others trying to figure things out. We were still in a reactionary mindset.

In September of 2021, we rolled out what I think is a reasonable approach: a hybrid policy from a workplace perspective.

We focused on intentional connections. We have maintained that for two and a half years while other organizations are yo-yoing in their perspectives.

Foundationally, why do people need to work in the same location? It is for specific reasons. By being next to someone, you can learn by listening to their conversations.

Some meetings can be done well virtually, while others are better when you get a group in the room to knock out work.

The hybrid approach allows people to come together intentionally to form relationships. Work is based on trust, and spending time together, in person or virtually, enhances that.

We have a good mixture. Many people are 100% remote, while some roles need to be in the office more frequently.

Most people are in the office two or three days a week. It is highly reflective of individual and business needs.

HOST: Some leaders have hard conversations because they aren't filling jobs due to in-person requirements. They aren't as flexible as competitors and are losing talent.

Sometimes leaders are stubborn and want the organization to work the same way they do because it is how they feel comfortable.

What advice can you give to those who are looking to influence their leadership toward more flexibility?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: It is important to get to the root cause of the "why" behind anything. Every industry and company will have different needs.

Understanding why there is a desire for in-person work—and whether it is a legitimate evaluation or a preference—is the first step.

There is a model using Preferences, Requirements, and Traditions. A preference is "this is how I like to work, so everyone else should."

A requirement is "if we are not in the office to meet our clients, we will literally lose business." A tradition is "we've always done it this way, so we should continue."

Starting to break those down can be an effective way to have a conversation. Ability to get strong candidates is also a compelling reason.

If you aren't finding people in your local market, you have to be more flexible to move the company forward.

HOST: Flexibility is as important as anything. The days of everyone arriving at 8:30 and leaving at 5:30 with someone looking over their shoulder are gone.

I used to hate commuting, but now I enjoy a 30-to-45-minute drive a couple of days a week because I can mentally disconnect.

At home, I might work for 12 hours straight. In the car, I can't do things I can do at a desk. Everyone is figuring out ways to cope.

HR leaders are now much more empowered to ask "why" regarding in-office requirements. If a candidate is curious, they should ask why a role requires four days in the office and see if they align with the values.

LINDSAY MCCARTY: You have more control and flexibility over your schedule now. In the past, the commute was forced upon you with no consideration of anything else.

Teachers have summers off but almost no flexibility during the year. We shouldn't take for granted the flexibility we have to work remotely or in the office.

When I lived in the Metro DC area, I commuted an hour and a half each way for years. By the time I got to the office, it felt like I had lived an entire day.

The quality of life we have gained in the last few years in our industry is impactful on a weekly basis.

HOST: Some people still prefer the office for focus, while younger generations like the flexibility.

I don't think Gen Z necessarily wants to sit at home alone; they want to go out and see people, but they want flexibility.

LINDSAY MCCARTY: Gen Z is doing well asking the "why" question. In my old cube with no windows, I would sometimes not talk to a single human being all day.

Commuting just for that makes no sense. Millennials started this, and Gen Z is bringing it into the workforce even more.

We need to be thoughtful about why we do the things we do and how to evolve.

HOST: What is one benefit Cherry Bekaert has added recently that you think is really impactful or that recruits enjoy?

LINDSAY MCCARTY: A couple of years ago, we introduced a firm closure for the week of the Fourth of July.

Monday through Friday of that week, we fully shut down as an entire firm. We grant those as extra vacation days rather than using PTO.

Having an entire five days where we are all off at the same time is amazing. Emails don't pile up, and the relaxation is genuine because you don't have mental stress about missing calls.

It has been a huge benefit from a recruiting standpoint and for internal morale.

HOST: That is a great thing to look forward to. Creative benefits outside of the standard health and dental show that a company values people outside of work.

Lindsay, thank you for joining me. We will have to do this again sometime next year.

LINDSAY MCCARTY: Thanks, Sam.

HOST: Happy holidays to everyone. If you are hearing this, it is likely January. I hope everyone's holidays went well. We will check in with everyone soon.