An R&D carve-out required transferring thousands of employees and setting up HR services and systems for a new organization.
The transition involved a new legal structure, updated HR processes, and coordination with a centrally managed transition program. The assignment focused on ensuring that HR services, HR systems, and employee transfer processes were in place and fully operational for the receiving organization at go-live.
What we did
The transition represented the most complex organizational changes within the organization, requiring both reorganization and the legal transfer of a large workforce to a new entity while maintaining operational continuity.
A key challenge was executing the transition within an unchanged HR system landscape while coordinating with a centrally governed transformation program spanning multiple R&D organizations.
To manage the complexity, the People & Culture transition was structured into three main workstreams:
- Employee Transfer – managing the legal transition of employees to the new entity
- HR Systems and Processes – securing HR systems, integrations, and service agreements
- Communication and Change Management – ensuring structured communication and stakeholder alignment
Within the HR Systems and Processes stream, a dedicated project was established to ensure HR services and systems were ready for the new organization. The project included multiple workstreams responsible for:
- Implementing organizational changes in HR systems
- Securing integrations with downstream systems
- Ensuring offers and new employment contracts
- Establishing service agreements and operational governance
- Managing process adjustments and temporary workarounds
- Preparing and executing the system cutover
We held central responsibility for driving the HR Systems and Processes project, including project manager, PMO, and leading the workstream responsible for organizational changes within the HR system landscape.
Results
The transition successfully enabled the transfer of the full +5000 R&D workforce to the new legal entity while maintaining operational stability.
- A large R&D workforce was successfully transferred to the new organization
- A new organizational structure and updated HR ways of working were established
- New employment contracts were issued and the workforce reorganized
- Integrations with finance and travel/expense systems were implemented
- The first payroll run in the new setup was completed successfully
- Service agreements and governance structures between the organizations were established
Outcome
The transition established the People & Culture foundation for the new legal R&D organization. By securing HR services, systems, and employee transitions within a coordinated transformation program, the organization successfully completed a complex workforce transition while maintaining operational continuity.
