Birch acquisition of Cbeyond from Cbeyond Employee - Anonymous employee Birch Communications Employee Review

There was little communication to the employees after the merger. Morale went down the toilet. Virtually none of the Cbeyond executives were held over and many Director level and management people were laid-off in the first few weeks. Entire departments and groups were eliminated. This is expected for duplicate functions, but some groups didn't have a Birch counterpart. Some groups were very busy while other teams just sat at their desks and either socialized or web surfed with no direction. Of folks remaining after the first month there was no one on one communication as to what your future might be with Birch. At that point, many valuable folks started leaving on their own even though Birch might have planned to keep them. I would venture to say that a large percentage of the remaining Cbeyond employees started looking for alternative work out of a feeling of self preservation. Policy changes were also communicated abruptly. The Monday after the acquisition was finalized, All evidence of Cbeyond was removed from the walls and displays. It just disappeared. Conference rooms were filled with whiteboard, furniture and other items deemed unnecessary. Chairs were moved around so that all matched on a floor. Desk appearance and dress code rules were published in the first week with little more than a weekend to comply (from a jeans and t-shirt environment to business casual. It is kind of funny because when the acquisition was announced we were told the cultures were a very close match. Turned out nothing could be further from the truth.