Healthy Land & Water

Brief Overview

This project involved leading a merger process involving representatives from both Boards and the CEOs from Healthy Waterways and South-East Queensland Catchments which addressed:

• the statutory model for the new entity;
• the legal requirements with the merger;
• the accounting impacts and most appropriate treatment for both entities;
• the systems and processes with the merger;
• the organisational structure for the new entity;
• the human resources management of redundancies from the merger;
• recruitment and selection of a new CEO;
• the vision and mission for the new entity;
• the development of a transition and communications plan for the new entity;
• consultation with the owners and key stakeholders for both entities;
• the respective legal meetings required to be held to pass the appropriate resolutions for change;
• the composition of the new Board and the appropriate representation of Board members from the owners;
• the most appropriate funding model for the new entity;
• how the assets, liabilities, cash and reserves were managed into the new entity;
• all requirements for corporate lodgements with the appropriate authorities, ATO, ASIC etc;
• the sales and marketing aspects and the products and services and how they would be handled and merged into the new entity;
• the culture of the new entity and the processes to generate a new culture;
• the leadership and management required from the new structure to successfully drive the new entity;
• the strategic and business planning processes necessary to drive the strategic direction of the new entity;

The project involved the Workplace Edge team (including Accounting and Legal Consultants) working with the Implementation Working Group which included representatives from both Boards, the two CEO’s, representatives from key stakeholder groups over a period of six months, to facilitate the above list and meet the deadline of 30 June 2016 for the commencement of the new entity.

Outcomes

The new entity was created and commenced on time with the agreement of both CEOs and both Boards and stakeholder Groups.  The process of transition continued for a period of 12 months.

​Workplace Edge was re-engaged to facilitate the transition and change management process with representatives from the senior executives of both entities which morphed into the new Senior executive team and CEO for the new entity.

The Workplace Edge team successfully facilitated this process with the support of the new CEO and Executive Team.

One year later Workplace Edge were re-engaged to drive three tranches of work, namely:

1. Remuneration and Human Resources advice;
2. A Culture Development Process which involved a round of interviews with 15 staff members and a facilitated two-day workshop with all 43 staff to work through all the issues identified and develop a culture development and change plan;
3. Development of a Workforce Plan to take HLW forward for the next five years.