Experiences to share about workplace mergers?

[Pom]

So today is "Day 1" for Mr. P. as his company merges with another.   He didn't make it this far in the merger process at the last employer because of redundancy in combining the two. We are still not confident that his division won't be on the chopping block going forward.  

Any stories good or bad?

[moolarkey]

JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns merger. Good for Bear Stears employees, they kept their jobs. H and all of his staff lost their jobs because Chase kept the Bear Stearns people. Not a good experience.

[UnderProtest]

Yes, I went through a couple when I was working. The impacts were slow coming in my company, but they were notoriously bad for not integrating systems when they bought a company. That resulted in less "back of house" people losing their jobs as they were still required to run the duplicate systems.

[steamboat185]

I had a bad merger experience with my last company. They removed vacation and sick time, implemented ridiculous policies, and had an awful hostile workplace environment. They also kept on as many people as possible through the first year and then let them go to avoid paying them severance under the old policy.

[Pom]

Thanks for sharing. I'm sorry none of these transitions were good but about what we are expecting.

[raangoli]

My last company was the one that acquired the other. Since I was part of the company that had bought the other I think I fared better than the others. There were layoffs but it was mostly the group that was brought in that was let go.

It was a slow integration but that may be because of the area I worked in and the type of work that we did.

I hope mr Pom is safe from the chopping block.

[Pom]

Jan 17, 2017 15:44:47 GMT -5 raangoli said:

My last company was the one that acquired the other. Since I was part of the company that had bought the other I think I fared better than the others. There were layoffs but it was mostly the group that was brought in that was let go.

It was a slow integration but that may be because of the area I worked in and the type of work that we did.

I hope mr Pom is safe from the chopping block.

Can I ask how long was it before that was happening? Was it all at once or in waves?  

Due to industry crash of the last couple of years, his current company has already had a ton of deep cuts. His company is the smaller of the two. It's starting to feel like a rebuilding phase of his field as a whole. He isn't actively looking because his offer included a 3 year commitment to avoid paying back his relo, bonus, house buying and selling benefits.

In a way it makes it easier to just wait it out due to the 3 year commitment. It makes it less stressful as to the debate of should he stay or go. If he gets laid off, we can move forward, clean slate.

[Marmee]

DH merged with an East Coast Firm about a year ago. His firm was about 50people, the other firm was more like 200...so they definitely had the numbers. It's now one of the largest firms in the country...instead of a family oriented Colorado only firm. DH's firm did not lay off people generally speaking, though now they are eliminating one division which was not making money...they basically are eliminating 2 people (though in a nice way, giving them options). DH was a stock holder in the firm, so the value of the stock went up a lot. They eliminated a few of the perks he had before...I think Health insurance changed. DH got a promotion about 6mo in so that he's a Partner/Principal now. They raised his salary so he's in line with the East Coast (HCOL) principals, which was a plus. They finally gave him a company CC which was good. They also have given him a $500/mo allowance instead of reimbursing mileage which a pretty big net positive for him. The major downsides is that while he is a principal/partner...it's not only with a few close knit people like in his old firm, there are a dozen or more now with the merged firm. He's got more people to deal with, more people to have input on what goes on in his office & obviously a lot more people to deal with now. He has to travel back East for Executive meetings at least a few times a year. Basically he'd probably say financially (at least short term) it's been very very good, but his quality of life/worklife isn't as good.

[mokes]

I've been through several mergers at my current company, but I think much smaller companies so probably a bit different.

Merger 1 -- a few changes, but mostly we were complementary rather than redundant so most cuts were in admin areas like accounting where there were overlaps.

Merger 2 -- This one was more like a typical merger ... we re-org'd right away, which resulted in a few cuts, but most cuts didn't happen until 6-12 months in once we were really integrated.

Merger 3 -- Acquisition ... we never really integrated with this team and so we pretty much operate separately except for some admin functions.

[shamrockshake]

Jan 17, 2017 17:34:06 GMT -5 mokes said:

Merger 3 -- Acquisition ... we never really integrated with this team and so we pretty much operate separately except for some admin functions.

This is my situation right now, we were acquired about a year ago, we function fairly separately as a division of the company that acquired us. Policies were all merged, they took pieces of both of ours and picked who had the best, so it worked out well in some areas. We only had one cut for redundancy but it was also because the person really wasn't great anyway, I'm pretty confident they'd have kept him and moved some things around if he was a valuable employee 

[raangoli]

Jan 17, 2017 16:20:46 GMT -5 Pom said:

Jan 17, 2017 15:44:47 GMT -5 raangoli said:

My last company was the one that acquired the other. Since I was part of the company that had bought the other I think I fared better than the others. There were layoffs but it was mostly the group that was brought in that was let go.

It was a slow integration but that may be because of the area I worked in and the type of work that we did.

I hope mr Pom is safe from the chopping block.

Can I ask how long was it before that was happening? Was it all at once or in waves?  

Due to industry crash of the last couple of years, his current company has already had a ton of deep cuts. His company is the smaller of the two. It's starting to feel like a rebuilding phase of his field as a whole. He isn't actively looking because his offer included a 3 year commitment to avoid paying back his relo, bonus, house buying and selling benefits.

In a way it makes it easier to just wait it out due to the 3 year commitment. It makes it less stressful as to the debate of should he stay or go. If he gets laid off, we can move forward, clean slate.

It was in waves around the company but they had a target number that they wanted to meet over an 18-24 month period I think.

I'd probably wait out due to the 3 year commitment.

[ellipses84]

Sorry you are going through this. Being in limbo is awful, but I agree you should should just wait it out. I'm not sure what you've heard about his industry in this city, but my industry seems to be picking up a little in 2017 and that is usually related to his. 2016 was bleak for my office and local projects.

[mskitkat]

Currently going through this. My job is supposedly safe, but we have several divisions that were told they would find out in 10 days if they had a job... 11 days ago. Workplace morale is fantastic.

[Pom]

Holy cow, these are depressing but not too surprising. mskitkat, good luck. Being in limbo does suck and a tiny part of me was hoping we'd KNOW. But we won't. The two companies combined have already gone from 60K employees two years ago to just under 45k now. Gloomy x 1000.