The People Side of M&A, Part 5: How to Monitor Culture After the Close

Integration doesn’t end when the org chart is updated or the systems are connected. In many ways, that’s when the real culture work begins.

Because after the dust settles and the post-close communications slow down, what’s left is how people actually feel, how they actually work together, and how decisions actually get made.

This is the moment when culture either holds or fractures.

In this final post of our five-part series, we’re looking at how to monitor and sustain cultural alignment long after the integration checklist is marked “complete.”

Culture Isn’t Static. It Evolves — So Track It.

Most integration playbooks treat culture as something to stabilize in the first 100 days. But culture isn’t a system you “fix”; it’s a living, adaptive force. And in a newly combined company, it will evolve whether you’re watching or not.

The challenge is this: what gets measured gets managed. What doesn’t, gets ignored.

That’s why we advise our clients to treat cultural health the same way they treat financial or operational health, by implementing regular check-ins, real indicators, and feedback loops.

What a Cultural Health Check Looks Like

We recommend a quarterly culture review for at least the first 12–18 months post-close. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be intentional.

Here’s what that should include:

🔹 1. People Sentiment and Engagement

Quantitative:

• eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score)

• Engagement survey data (pulse or deep-dive)

• Turnover and retention, especially in leadership and critical roles

Qualitative:

• Themes from anonymous feedback channels

• Patterns in exit interviews or onboarding feedback

• One-on-one interviews or focus groups

🔹 2. Behavior and Alignment

• Are the shared values being reflected in daily behaviors?

• Who’s being rewarded, promoted, or recognized and does it align with the new culture?

• Are decision-making styles aligned or reverting to old norms?

We often recommend creating a "culture signal dashboard". It's a simple internal tool that tracks culture markers alongside traditional KPIs.

Ownership is Key — Culture Can’t Be Everyone’s Job

Once the integration team winds down, ownership of culture often gets blurry.

That’s why it’s critical to assign clear accountability for ongoing culture stewardship:

• Is it owned by the Chief People Officer?

• A designated integration leader or COO?

• A cross-functional culture committee?

Someone (or some team) must be responsible for tracking, reporting, and, most importantly, acting on what the culture data reveals.

Spotting Early Warning Signs

Left unmonitored, culture drift tends to show up in subtle but significant ways:

• A rise in passive turnover or internal transfers

• Teams operating in silos or reverting to legacy behaviors

• Increased escalation of decisions due to unclear norms or misaligned expectations

• Front-line confusion about who leads what or what “success” even looks like

None of these feel like a crisis in isolation. But together, they signal a deeper issue: lack of integration traction.

Your job post-close isn’t just to protect the people you have, it’s to ensure they’re moving in the same direction.

Final Thoughts

Culture isn’t a phase. It’s not something you “check off” once the emails have been sent and the all-hands has run.

It’s the internal infrastructure of your deal and whether your teams, leaders, and operating model can actually deliver the value you set out to create.

By building cultural health into your post-close rhythm, you not only protect the investment, you increase your chances of unlocking its full potential.

Thanks for following along with our People Side of M&A series. If you’re thinking about culture in your own portfolio or leadership team, we’d love to talk.