Don't get caught in H&F's bad trade - Anonymous employee UKG Employee Review

1.0
Dec 19, 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Company is going to go public, so if you get stock in your compensation, it could be a nice little pay-day.

Cons

H&F took Kronos private a while back. Kronos was a struggling company and it seems like H&F wanted to buy it, "clean up" the books, and take it public again. However, it seems like that wasn't going well for them, so they took Ultimate Software private as well with the intention of merging the two companies, because the combined value is worth more than the sum of the parts. This is what "cleaning up" the books looks like at UKG: An extreme push, especially in certain departments, to use contractors from India. In and of itself, this isn't an issue. The issue is, management is offering 2 or even 3 heads in India for every 1 in the U.S. The powers that be want to cut workforce spending to make the books look better for when they go public. At the time of the merger, Ultimate Software was at $2 billion in revenue and growing, with about half the workforce when taking into account contractors. Kronos was at $2 billion and shrinking because of poor management decisions. They decided to keep Kronos's management instead of Ultimate's because they felt Kronos's management was more experienced. The only thing they are more experienced in is making bad decisions over and over again. Management doesn't care to fix this. One town hall, when asked about the attrition, the CTO said everybody was replaceable.

Explore other reviews about UKG

5.0
Jul 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good company to work at

Cons

A little hectic job but okay

1.0
Jun 25, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There was once a great company named Ultimate Software, it was destroyed by a hostile takeover from H&F, a private equity firm, and a merger with Kronos to become UKG. There are very few Pros since that time.

Cons

When this company was Ultimate Software, prior to the takeover from H&F and the merger with Kronos, it was a world class company with top shelf people. The company Motto was "People First" and they truly lived by that motto, never a layoff, great working environment and stealer benefits. Since the takeover and subsequent merger with Kronos, to become UKG this company has taken a path of "Money First", which is understandable given the greedy nature of Private Equity Firms like H&F. They have systematically closed most of the offices across the US and have been expanding their footprint in Noida India, for obvious reasons. The leadership that has been put in place by H&F is clearly focused on IPO. And we all know what that means, clean up the books and make the company look as good on paper as possible. Can you say "Lipstick on a Pig". This was once a great company when it was run by Scott and Viv but now it has gone the way of the Private Equity management and is heading for a great fall.

3
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