A former great place to work destroyed by poor pay and poorer decisions - Anonymous employee HCSS Employee Review

We lost our profit sharing entirely. We weren't consulted on the buyout when the decision was made, even though we have been told for years we were part-owners and equals in ownership. The pay is below average for our industry but was always made up for by the benefits. Not anymore. We lost an average annual bonus of 25%, that put us in line with other companies on pay, and were given a 3%-10% bump to our base salary, which still means we make way less than we did. We lost unlimited PTO rollover. We lost our ESOP program. We are no longer part-owners. Because we were an ESOP we had the ability to grow with the company over time and grow our wealth over time. That is being cashed out for all standard employees while all the executives received a retention plan from Thoma Bravo and free stock shares. We were offered the chance to buy back in, but because of how our ESOP was set up, we would have to take an income tax penalty and early retirement penalty. The average employee would have to spend 20-30% more to get the same level of investment the executives are getting. No retention packages were set up for long-term or critical employees. Hiring budgets for all departments have been slashed bad, with some departments cut over 60%. They made the hiring budget and the raise budget the same. There are massive pay disparities across positions and within each department. The benefits are subpar compared to other tech companies. No raise can go above 7% without approval from the new Thoma Bravo board. Someone asked why they should stay and the owner's answer was that you should leave if you get a better offer, and if you don't feel like you make enough you should learn to live with less. This upset people because the owner made so much off the sale and any employee who hadn't been with the company for 10 years made very little. Opportunities for upward advancement are shrinking and there is no guarantee you will receive a pay adjustment in a new position. Senior people who have been with the company for years are making only slightly more than new hires and still well below the industry average. Because of the higher turnover, more work is being put on the employees and the work-life balance is no longer a thing. When someone asked the owner said that the work-life balance wasn't a priority. Management talks about culture and positivity but the positivity has become toxic since the buyout. People are unhappy and we are told not to talk about it or to suck it up and deal. Management has been doing employee retention meetings with people trying to keep them from leaving but not fixing the problems. None of our complaints are being heard or they are being ignored. Inflation is destroying our salary as much as the loss of our bonus but we were told we wouldn't get a salary bump for inflation. Our HR person got us full remote, then they fired her. Even though we all tell the owners and management what we need they still say culture is more important. Culture doesn't pay for my kids daycare, my groceries or my house.