Kelly Anne is the COO for an IT consulting company with offices in three major cities in the United States. They were recently bought by a larger company, and while she does not anticipate that there will be major changes such as layoffs or a major reorganization (e.g., she and the rest of the executive team have been instructed that they will largely still operate independently), she does worry that they are not really prepared for any disruptions at this time. She has concerns about a number of issues, but particularly employee morale and office rivalries.
Recently, she has observed a few alarming things. First, while each of offices performs some of the same IT consisting services, each office specializes in different service offerings and tends to focus on a different client base (i.e., the Washington DC office focuses on Federal Government customers and the Boston office focuses on the financial industry). As a result, offices are sometimes asked to work together on projects and proposals so that they can leverage the strengths of each office as needed. However, she has observed some problems in these office collaborations. The Boston office has recently had a much higher workload (and thus have been putting in very long hours) and she suspects that they feel that they are carrying the other offices. She has also heard some complaints from the other two offices that employees in Boston have been slow to return calls and have talked down to them. As a result, she worries that morale is low. In a recent conversation with a team lead in Boston, they discussed that employees were definitely feeling stressed, but that ultimately, work-life balance is an individual decision; that balance is going to look different for everyone. Both Kelly Anne and this team lead put in long hours and feel it is important to always be available. For example, it is not uncommon for employees to receive emails from Kelly Anne she is away on vacation.
Kelly Anne is worried, because while they will still operate independently, the executive team has been informed that they will have some fairly aggressive sales goals for the upcoming year and that they have been tasked to develop more services and customers within the energy industry. She believes strongly in the need for them to diversity their customer base and believes that the energy industry is a very strategic target, but she is worried about whether all three offices are prepared to collaborate in the way that they will need to in order to pursue this new strategy while maintaining their current customers.
What do you think Kelly Anne should do at this point based on her observations? What advice would you give to Kelly Anne at this point (and why)?