Skip to the last two paragraphs for the summary, however I believe this is a noble worth reading.
If Vensure cares about you then they go to substantial lengths to keep it a secret. Their MO is to go around buying up smaller companies only to try their hardest to make you feel vindicated in your initial worry over the buyout.
In our transitionary period, we went through a horrendous period of all of our best people leaving due to Vensure’s wonton disruption of our office’s ecosystem. This left the remainder of us to wonder, if Vensure spent so much money buying us, it would behoove them to retain their most valuable talent, so why was there such little effort (read: No effort) put forth to keep us?
Well to put it plainly, there are two possible solutions. Either Vensure does not know how to protect their investment, in which case why work for them? Or more likely, we were not what Vensure invested in. Our software, more likely, but not our people. None of us were given counter offers or any sort of incentive to stay.
Which brings me to my next point: From our kickoff announcement meeting, we were drilled over and over again that nothing would change. In the months that followed, all incentives were taken from us and morale took a nosedive. Again, if this bothered Vensure, they did a great job hiding it. There was no transparency in the transition which left everyone feeling painfully anxious and uncertain about our futures.
In that anxiety, everyone began looking for backup jobs and came to realize that our industry paid substantially more than we were. Sing compensated. As people came forward to negotiate salary, we learned that upper management had had their hands tied by Vensure. Again, if Vensure sees that their most valuable people are leaving because they don’t feel valued enough, the solution is not to prevent our leadership from making any helpful moves to keep the company from losing value. But of course, Vensure had no interest in keeping the best people.
With every instance throughout our transitionary period, I find myself asking the same question: Does Vensure simply not know how to handle an acquisition in a manner that is advantageous to all parties? Or do they actively not care about the employees who they acquire? While it’s much more comforting to attribute ignorance rather than malice, I unfortunately feel as though it must be the latter.
For instance, we went through a several month long period in which our department was barely functioning due to understaffing after the first waves of mass resignation. Vensure put us on a hiring freeze, a move antithetical to- well to any common sense. If you have more jobs to do than there are people, you hire people. This stress caused more people to leave and at no point did Vensure offer any form of an olive branch to show support, even as a symbolic gesture (though tangible support was painfully needed).
In fact, the closest thing they gave us to support was dubious at best and short sighted at worst. After months of begging to be allowed to hire new people, we were finally given a compromise, they would send us some of their own people. Now mind you, at this point it has felt as though they have been trying to harm us in every way possible, so this felt akin to the first steps in phasing all of us our for their own people. For context, we asked about being able to join the modern workforce and be trusted to work remotely. In our initial announcement meeting, Vensure was bragging about how they offer remote work. Our department was told otherwise.
We come to find out that these replacement employees are not only remote, but in an entirely different country. But not only an entirely different country, an entirely different hemisphere. But not only an entirely different hemisphere, they were brand new to payroll!!! So now we are struggling to train brand new employees on everything. It was understood that sending Vensure’s own people would mitigate the training process as they’d already be familiar and just need to learn our system, however this was no different than us just hiring someone, which raises several red flags.
Throughout the transition, Vensure never had any concrete answers for us on our questions or concerns. It was like running through a Forrest blindfolded. Either the transition was poorly planned or we were being intentionally kept in the dark, but neither are good answers.
It lead me to the conclusion that while I may not know Vensure’s intentions to any degree of certainty, what I can say is if Vensure was actively trying to sabotage us- or at least our department, the moves that they would make in such an effort would be indistinguishable from the moves that they have been making.
This whole situation has been nothing short of a letdown, and everything far from positive. I liked my job, I worked hard and was often recognized for it. I was frequently told that there were significant plans in place for me, and it is a shame that Vensure did not see my value. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and turned down several offers in the transition for over $10,000 more than I was currently making (which would have put me on the low end of the industry average), because I wanted to see what Vensure had to offer. In that time, it seemed as though all Vensure wanted to provide us with was an unfortunate sense of regret for not taking other offers. I reached out to one of those offers and they offered me even more because they recognized my ability and saw the value I could bring to their company, which is something Vensure did not want to do.
When an employee quits, it is often framed as a failing in the employee’s part for not sticking it out with the family, but Vensure was not part of that family. I do not believe I walked out on my company. Vensure was given every opportunity to retain myself and the others, but they simply showed no interest in doing the right thing. These concerns were voiced high and low but fell on deaf ears and the only ones who cared had their power stripped from Vensure, leaving us toothless in our efforts.
If I opened a restaurant but wanted to save money by not buying chairs, nobody would want to eat there. If I tried to cut costs by buying lower quality of food, nobody would want to eat there. If I only hired one waiter for 50 tables, nobody would want to eat there. Any business has a series of axioms that must be met to flourish. When they are not met, often that business fails. Industry standards dictate conditions that Vensure refused to meet or even acknowledge, and now they are left wondering why nobody wants to eat at their restaurant.
I have nothing but love and appreciation for the company I left, but Vensure has unfortunately succeeded and ruined everything.
Long story short, if you enjoy not being heard, undervalued and underpaid, I would highly recommend Vensure. They will do a phenomenal job at doing whatever they choose regardless of if it makes the most sense for setting employees and division partners up for success.
Oh and their employment agreements tell employees not to discuss wages which is literally illegal, but hey nobody ever accused Vensure of being anything short of shady.
