Raj Kawa
Work with me
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Bringing teams together after an acquisition

Two companies, two countries, and three ways of working. I led the talent integration and the harder work of helping people feel part of one company.

Role
Owner of the One Orium belonging initiative, and lead on the talent integration
Tools
Culture Amp, Slack, Greenhouse, focus groups, bilingual communications
Scope
Canada and Mexico
Reading time
2 minutes

When Orium acquired a Mexico-based company in 2024, I led the talent side of the integration. The systems part went well. Recruiting moved onto one platform for both companies, and ours was the first function fully integrated across both.

The harder part was everything a system can’t fix. People had come from three different ways of working, two from our own history and one from the company we’d acquired. Nobody had agreed on a shared one. So I started an initiative called One Orium.

Function fully integrated across both companies
First
Belonging focus groups, across both countries
2
Languages for onboarding check-ins and recognition
2

Start with the data, not a hunch

It would have been easy to assume remote people just needed more social events. Our employee feedback said something more specific: people wanted more visibility into other teams and locations, and a real sense of being one team. That gave the work a clear focus, and a baseline to measure against.

Listen before you plan

Instead of designing culture from the people team outward, I ran two belonging focus groups across both countries and asked what already creates connection and what gets in the way. Then employees chose which shared rituals were worth investing in.

What's already working

  • Small, human interactions
  • One-to-one relationships
  • Shared interests
  • Supportive managers
  • All-hands and Lightning Talks

What's missing

  • Silos and little visibility into other teams
  • Inconsistent recognition
  • Too few shared experiences
  • Distance between locations

What employees chose

  1. An end-of-year meetup
  2. Quarterly clubs and meetups
  3. A swag reveal
What two belonging focus groups told us, summarized. The rituals were chosen by employees, not by the people team.

Give ownership, not just invitations

The plan doesn’t treat Mexico as an audience for programming designed in Canada. It gives our Mexico culture lead ownership of the Mexico side: the Mexico Social Champions, the Mexico social channels, and one quarterly culture initiative.

Language inclusion is practical, not symbolic. Communications go out in English and Spanish, Spanish-first where that’s right, with a bilingual channel directory on the way so anyone can find the spaces that matter. And the rule I hold everything to: never treat one country as the default with the other as an add-on. Shared prompts everyone can answer, plus room for local traditions like Mexican Independence Day, Día de Muertos, and Día de Reyes.

  1. Listen

    Employee feedback across the company, then two belonging focus groups in Canada and Mexico.

  2. Decide together

    Employees chose which shared rituals were worth investing in, not the people team.

  3. Share ownership

    Local champions in each country, initiatives led from Mexico rather than delivered to it, and bilingual by default.

How One Orium was built: listening first, deciding with employees, and designing ownership in from the start.

What changed

Ours was the first function fully integrated across both companies. Employees in both countries chose the shared rituals worth investing in, and the plan builds in local ownership rather than programming designed in one country for the other.

Consistency is not the same thing as sameness. One company doesn’t mean one culture copied everywhere.