Tenure

[Uisce Beatha]

You guys are from all walks of life and many are professionals of one sort or another.  I assume you've moved about a bit, changed jobs and, hopefully for my needs, have been involved in mergers and buyouts. 

We're selling our company.  It's small and I'm the tech guy not the "business" guy.  I simply have no experience in this sort of thing. 

I'll be going to work for the buyers.  My question is this.  Should my time-in-service with my company count toward "tenure" with the new company vis-a-vis benefits, vacation, etc.?  I'll be doing the exact same job overseeing the exact same product line and services.  Basically, the name on the door will be changing.  I guess I'm looking for real-world experience on this one; I already have an opinion.  ;-)

Just wondering if this is something over which I press if need be.  I don't want to be coming out of left field if I do.

Thanks much.

[Spanky]

In my experience it was mixed. The new guys came in and hand picked their own "people". They seemed to get the glory and percs and what not. A couple years later when the new management fell through and the the company defaulted back to the previous owners, the only people that managed to survive the mass layoff were original employees. Maybe not the answer you were looking for but that was my experience.

[1puttpar]

I've been involved in many M&A's.  Generally speaking, assuming you've "made the cut" your tenure is usually honored.  If it's not a done deal, I might approach the existing owner and ask if that will be part of the contract.  If you are being acquired by a much lager company, I have seen where the benefits actually increased.  For retention purposes, there is no good reason to not honor your time served. 

[stegerman]

My experience is that what you are talking about is a negotiation point but not necessarily a given. It really depends on how they are structuring their benefits delivery and what was potentially already agreed on. What I mean by that is, will the level of benefits received be based on tenure or on responsibility level, or both. When a company with an existing employee base is being purchased, items like RIF's, position transfer, benefits, human resource issues, etc... are typically discussed during the sale. If that is the case, you may have very little to say about it. However, they may not have discussed those things, especially if the companies are small. If you are a small company, you could ask you old boss what (s)he knows.

All that being said, I would not say you would be coming out of left field asking the question, but my advice would be to listen carefully and quietly to what they tell you you get and why before asking.

just my$.01

[Seamus]

I've only experienced twice. And both times my tenure transfered over. Vacation, benefits, etc.

In my opinion it would be a lame arse company that didn't do this for you. Especially the longer tenure you have, I was at 10 years the first time and 15 the next. There are some companies who will not do this for you, that's too bad, and they're probably trying to save a buck or two. Shame on them.

[Aske]

lesson: don't count on anything

[Uisce Beatha]

Thanks Gents.

I should probably elaborate a bit.  I'm an owner as well as an employee.  Our company is tiny.  Two owners and three employees.  Myself, my partner and his wife.  In essence, I'm what's being bought.  I wrote every single line of code, deployed every byte of information, have been involved with every single client and the entire thing would fall apart in under a month without me.  My partner has been only peripherally involved over the past few years.  He's been working on other projects that are not part of the sale.  His wife does our office management and the majority of our light support.  My partner has not been offered a position with the new company.  Myself and his wife have been.

There's no deal without me - literally.  If I don't take the job the deal is off and that's understood by all.  I'm dealing from a position of strength but I intend to be completely reasonable in my negotiations.  I don't want to sour the deal.  I want to shed ultimate responsibility and the stress that goes with it.  We're internet based and you may not believe this but I've been on call every minute of every day for the past ten years.  Middle of the night, weekends, vacations, everything.  I'm worn to the bone.

The aggregate of your responses lead me to believe that, given my circumstances, my tenure with my current company should be strongly considered transferrable. 

lesson: don't count on anything

That... I can count on.   

[Fuzzy]

I would think transferable tenure would be table stakes.

Heck, I'm on the 2nd stint with my current company and when they hired me back I picked up right where I left off with respect to benefits. May not be the case with all companies but they didn't even blink when I asked.