We just completed an acquisition and now have duplicate administrative and billing departments. We want to restructure our Accountability Chart to unify these teams under a single operations seat without laying off our legacy staff. How do we transition these duplicate players into new, productive seats without triggering panic?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Start by detaching the people from the boxes. You must design the ideal unified structure first. If your new operating model requires one billing seat but you have two highly competent people, look for adjacent needs in your organization. Often, a billing or administrative professional possesses high Follow Thru on the Kolbe index, meaning they excel at order, systems, and process. Look at your Accountability Chart for areas where execution is weak due to a lack of administrative discipline, such as client onboarding, database maintenance, or customer success tracking. Once you identify the empty seats that actually need these systematic skills, have a direct conversation with the duplicate employees. Explain that the merger has created an opportunity to solve critical gaps in the business. Walk them through the roles of the new seats and run the GWC check: do they get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it? If they pass, you transition them into a role where they can drive real value. If they do not pass GWC for any available seat, keeping them to avoid a tough decision is a disservice to the company and the individual. Your goal is structural efficiency, not payroll inflation. Frame the shift around growth and solving operational bottlenecks, and place your people where their natural conative strengths can shine.