Jessica Sharp 
If you’ve been following deal activity lately, you know that mergers and acquisitions are back in a big way. According to Bain & Company’s 2026 M&A Report, global deal value finished 2025 up 43 percent, making it the second-highest year on record for M&A activity. EY is projecting continued growth in 2026. After years of economic uncertainty that had many organizations holding on making major decisions, it seems that businesses have collectively decided that the wait is over
At Maven, we’ve experienced an influx in outreach around merger and acquisition communications. We’re working with more clients navigating corporate transitions than we have in years. Personally, these are projects I love because there’s always an interesting story to uncover and tell and there are so many stakeholders to consider. Unfortunately, there’s also a consistent element that always frustrates me, and that’s the lack of consideration around internal stakeholders when it comes to the communications strategy and planning.
I see it again and again: enormous amounts of energy are put toward the financial, legal, and operational elements of the transition (appropriately so), and communications, specifically communications with staff, are an after-thought. At best, this approach is inconsiderate; at worst it can blow-up a deal.
Employees Are Not an Afterthought Audience
When word of a merger or acquisition gets around, whether through an official announcement or the inevitable rumor mill, employees immediately start asking the same questions: Is my job safe? Who will I report to? Will the culture I love disappear? What does this mean for me?
In the absence of clear, consistent communication from leadership, people fill that void themselves. And what they fill it with is rarely accurate or helpful. I’ve seen it firsthand: insufficient, unclear, or inconsistent communication during a merger or acquisition exacerbates employee anxiety, fuels misinformation, and leads to emotional detachment and increased turnover risk.
According to a February 2025 piece from David Olsson, Managing Director at the Institute for Mergers, Acquisitions & Alliances, early and consistent communication is directly tied to smoother integrations, reduced employee anxiety, and maintained morale throughout the transition. The people who carry out the day-to-day work of your organization are the ones who will ultimately determine whether a merger or acquisition succeeds or fails. They deserve to be part of the conversation early.
Legal Constraints Are Real, But They’re Not the Whole Story
One of the most common things I hear from leadership teams I work with during a corporate transition is that they can’t say anything until the deal closes. I understand the instinct, and yes, there are legal boundaries around what can and can’t t be shared at different phases of a transaction. But those boundaries are often narrower than people assume.
Many organizations mistakenly believe that nothing can be shared until the deal closes, when in fact, there is quite a lot that can be said. Strategic, thoughtful internal communication, even in the pre-close phase, helps pave the way for a smoother transition. The goal isn’t to reveal proprietary deal terms. It’s to acknowledge that something significant is happening, to demonstrate that leadership is thoughtful and accessible, and to give employees a channel for asking questions and expressing concerns.
Silence isn’t neutral (we all know what “no comment” really means). Silence reads as avoidance. And employees are astute enough to pick up on this.
Building Your Internal Communications Strategy: Where to Start
A thoughtful internal communications strategy for a merger or acquisition doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be intentional. Here are the foundational elements we recommend putting in place early:
Create a Key Messages Document to Keep Everyone on the Same Talk Track
Consistency is everything during a period of uncertainty. If employees hear different things from different people, trust erodes quickly. A clear, concise key messages document that everyone from the CEO to the front-line manager is working from ensures that your organization is speaking with one voice. This document should be updated as the situation evolves, and those updates should be communicated to your entire advocacy network in real time.
Identify Your Internal Advocates
Not everything has to rest on the shoulders of senior leadership. In fact, some of the most effective M&A communication happens at the manager level from someone an employee sees every day, trusts, and feels comfortable asking questions. Identifying and empowering middle managers early gives you a distributed network of communicators who can relay information directly and respond to team-specific concerns in real time. For this to work, those managers need to be informed. Leaving them out of the loop means that they will likely get caught flat-footed when their teams start asking questions.
Create Channels for Employee Questions and Feedback
One-way communication isn’t enough in times of corporate transition. Employees need to feel heard, not just informed. Creating an avenue for two-way workplace communication during corporate transitions, such as open forums, Q&A sessions, and structured feedback channels, directly enhances employees’ shared sense of goals and organizational commitment. Practically speaking, this can be as simple as a dedicated email address for questions, a page on your intranet with regularly updated FAQs, or time set aside at team meetings specifically for M&A-related questions. The mechanism matters less than the consistency and responsiveness.
Communicate Frequently Even When There’s Nothing New to Report
Most people assume if there’s nothing to say, then don’t say anything. In corporate transitions, this is not the case (see the note about silence above). Hearing that things are moving along and there’s not much to update employees on is itself an update, and hearing it from leadership feels very different than hearing nothing at all. Regular touchpoints, even brief ones, signal that leadership is engaged, that the process is moving, and that employees haven’t been forgotten. A brief weekly email, a short video message from the CEO, a standing town hall, whatever fits your culture. The cadence matters more than the format.
The Bottom Line
Mergers and acquisitions are, at their core, human events. The financials, the legal work, the operational integration – all of it ultimately depends on people showing up, staying engaged, and working together toward a shared future. When employees are treated as an afterthought in the communication process, that future gets harder to reach.
The organizations that get M&A communication right don’t wait until the deal closes to start thinking about their people. They build a thoughtful, proactive internal communications strategy from the start and they commit to it for the duration of the transition.
If a merger or acquisition is on your calendar in the coming year, I’d love to talk. Helping organizations navigate complex transitions with clear, strategic communication is one of the things Maven does best.