Bipolar company- acquisitions vs homegrown
Pros
Appears decent for direct hires (meaning NOT employees at acquisitions). with flex time and apparantly real teamwork in the lower and midlevel ranks. Executives and homegrown people can continue to give good reviews- and they are correct- but just about the home territories/ business units. Working at an acquisition: nope, another world- much different- acknowledging your mileage may vary.
Cons
You are screwed if you are from an acquisition. You need to drink the Koolaid and work with them, but in parallel- go out and get another job as soon as you can. Severance is way below industry standard (ex 1 wk salary per 2 years service up to 5 or 6 wks max), so not worth sticking around for. And they don't give "retention bonuses" at all, even to key employees, when they plan a site to be shut down, so key people are not happy and tied up to the end, like other companies DO do when they really want an acquisition to work!. They have some classes for acquisitions and try to merge people- but their base process is exceedingly poor. They WILL absorb infrastructure and IT etc... but they suck at absorbing people. They often don't notify you until they tap you on the shoulder that you're out, and they keep key people hanging for 6-9 months without knowing if they have a job (ex Yield Engineers at an Analog acquisition- you'd think they were key and should be tied up). Attitude towards acquirees is cavalier at top levels- straight from the President's mouth- " they don't have anywhere to go, and they didn't go anywhere the last time, so why should we do anything for them?" Some key top management are actor politicians (when their lips move, they are lying, one top person admits behind closed doors he lies) Of course, that's business, everyone knows mergers are tough, but MCHP is not what they seem, much more immoral at the top. AND- if I was the board, I'd figure out why 2, maybe 3 acquisitions in a row may have trouble. (Financials can be painted over but after skimming the cream off the top- was that acquisition truly a good financial move at the end? Supertex and Micrel- NO, Atmel tbd.) Unfortunately MCHP won't do what other companies do who want a successful takeover. That's because they are Microcheap, in their own words. Also- they are SCARED of top performers. There is corporate propaganda that high achievers are not team players, even if they won employee of the year awards for teamwork and were the prime teambuilders at the acquired company. Several guys like were tossed after cutting their throats at my acquired co.. people laying them off didn't have a clue. And Institutionally they are closed at the top, so acquisition personnel will never pierce the inner circle. Acquisitions are hard to do successfully, and MCHP is just trying to do what they can to get away with the low hanging fruit. Short term- maybe ok- but losing a lot of IP and key personnel longterm.