If you worked for Ultimate Software before the acquisition and merger with Kronos, you knew what it was like to work for an amazing company. Scott Scherr and Viv Maza were a power duo. They knew how to run a company and treat their employees. Scott was would constantly recite the mantra "Protect the house" and I still remember that video he used to play with the movie "300" clip. Most importantly, though, was our motto was "People First" and Scott made it PERFECTLY clear what that meant - If I take care of my employees, they will take care of our customers. And Viv Maza was basically Wonder Woman. She would speak at our annual summits and it was clear she was listening to us. Always working on new events, projects, or benefits. She always used to say "You take care care of us, and we'll take care of you". When she asked us to donate to a cause, we did so, not just to help others, but because Viv asked us to. We had annual training summits that also doubled as team building trips (especially for us virtual employees), and bi-annual appreciation trips to resorts with spending cash. We worked hard and we earned those trips. We got birthday amazon gift cards and awards for excellence that were announced to our teams and divisions. I myself got an award and public recogniton for work, announced to the crowd, and I WAS PROUD. Ultimate sofware was the best company I ever worked for. I BOASTED about where I worked and was grateful to feel both SEEN and HEARD. Most importantly, we felt like Ultimate had given us so much and with gratitude, we GLADLY DID OUR BEST TO PAY IT BACK.
That's all over now. We have gone from "People First" to "Profits First". All the top brass is Kronos and they're obviously taking orders from some faceless P&E firm crony who we don't know and clearly doesn't care about the human beings who work here.Productivity has almost doubled, while headcount is exactly the same. The mental health crises I've witnessed in my coworkers would make you want to cry. The depression, anger, anxiety, panic, sadness, resentment, it runs the gamot around nawadays. in all the departments around us. While HR and whatever internally focused marketting team are trying their best to spin that everything is hunky dory, it's pretty hard to do when so many people are leaving, and now our first (but surely not last) layoff. Every week I am suprised at someone I can no longer find in MS Teams. a massive chunk of our development folks seems to have disappeared, replaced by new folks, primarily in India with low levels of product expertise, and basically coming in cold, not picking up dropped projects. I keep running into escalations that had some degree of work on it and then just...dropped. The asignee no longer with the company, and the escalation not reassigned but instead forgotten. Then midmarket clients losing their customer success consultants, and all that works seems to have been dumped on the ERMS...And now This idiotic switchover to the "pods" makes my blod boil. Dozens of Teams decimated that have worked together for years, some a decade, then force them to work in a pod with strangers in different functions that you have not been trained on and now you are forced to take those cases with minimal training. Sacrificing customer experience for numbers. Welcome to UKG.
What you will do will never be enough. Even if you go above and beyond. Even if you present at our convention. Even if you bring in a huge deal. Even if you save a client. It doesn't matter. You will never be thanked. You will not be acknowledged. Your pay will not increase. You will not get promoted. The word around the office is basically: Shut up and be thankful you still have a job. This is what it's come to.
Then we have the mediocre salary increases and bonuses/stock option awards since the merger. That is to folks with above-average year-end reviews! Even after just announcing at our town hall a "record breaking year". What a let down. Ultimate software was 40% virtual, but UKG only seems to be only promoting employees who work in-office. If you're virtual, it feels like you're now screwed. Switching health insurance from Aetna to United (ick), just to save a buck I'm sure I can go on but I just don't have it in me. This seems to be par for the course for all the people I speak to: Virtually no promotion opportunities. Most teammates are stuck. The only way up seems to be out.