M&A's to stat pad a American company. - Software Engineer Xplor Technologies Employee Review

1.0
26 Apr 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Xplor's financial capacity to acquire other businesses and utilize their trading names as a means to facilitate annual redundancies could be perceived as advantageous from a business perspective, but it raises ethical and employee welfare concerns. From a business standpoint, this strategy may allow the company to streamline operations, reduce costs, and potentially increase profitability in the short term. However, it's important to consider the long-term implications, including the impact on employee morale, company culture, and reputation. Using acquisitions solely as a means to facilitate annual redundancies may lead to a loss of trust among employees and stakeholders, tarnishing the company's reputation and potentially hindering its ability to attract and retain top talent in the future. Additionally, it could create a volatile and uncertain work environment, which may negatively affect productivity and innovation. Overall, while the company's financial strength to acquire other businesses may be seen as a positive aspect, the ethical and human resource implications of using acquisitions to facilitate redundancies should be carefully evaluated and addressed.

Cons

1. Management Integrity: There is a perception of dishonesty among the management, particularly regarding their communication about the company's direction and the role of employees within it. 2. Lack of Transparency in Mergers and Acquisitions: Over the past five years, there has been a significant focus on mergers and acquisitions, during which employees have been led to believe they are integral to the company's growth. However, the true motives and implications of these actions are not transparent to the staff. 3. Unclear Direction and Disconnection from Employees: There is a lack of clear direction from management, leaving employees feeling undervalued and uncertain about their roles within the organization. 4. Prioritization of US Business Interests: The company appears to prioritize its US business partners over its European and international offices, often at the expense of key infrastructure and IT staff, resulting in annual redundancies to fund further mergers and acquisitions. 5. Deceptive Implementation of Remote Work: Despite promising a work-from-home culture without redundancies, the company sold its office space and relocated assets, leading to job losses. Terms like "service of excellence" and "Talent hub" are used to mask these redundancies. 6. Manipulative Bonus Structure and Misallocation of Funds: Employees are encouraged to strive for bonuses through goal settings, but revenue is primarily spent on mergers and acquisitions rather than rewarding staff. This misallocation of funds undermines employee morale. 7. Ineffectual Project Management: High turnover rates among business analysts, project managers, and key staff result in incomplete projects and a lack of clarity about the company's future direction. 8. Leadership Instability: There has been a revolving door of CEOs over the past six years, which has contributed to a sense of instability within the organization. 9. Outsourcing of Software and Technology Departments: The majority of the software and technology department has been made redundant and relocated to India for cost-saving purposes, despite the likelihood of rehiring local talent in the future. 10. Inadequate Redundancy Process: Redundancies are often made without proper handover processes, leading to subsequent hiring of former employees as contractors to address issues that arise. 11. Declining Client Base: The company's lack of interest or understanding in its field has resulted in a decrease in its client base. 12. Superficial Inclusivity: The company promotes inclusivity and diversity through its sales team and LinkedIn presence, but these efforts appear superficial and lack genuine commitment. 13. Ineffective Planning Sessions: PI planning sessions fail to achieve meaningful results due to frequent changes in direction from higher-ups who lack understanding of the company's business model and client needs. 14.They are still recovering from portraying a positive workplace culture on platforms like LinkedIn, while behind the scenes, they're engaging in practices that may not align with that image. This can be seen as deceptive and misleading to both current employees and potential hires. On LinkedIn, they might showcase their contact center or sales teams as vibrant, dynamic, and culturally diverse, emphasizing values like teamwork, innovation, and employee satisfaction. They may even highlight events, team-building activities, or employee testimonials to reinforce this image of a great workplace culture. However, the reality might be quite different. Moving operations to Newcastle for "service of excellence" could mask cost-cutting measures or other business motivations. Meanwhile, not addressing turnover rates or the preference for hiring from specific regions like India could indicate deeper issues within the company's management or HR practices. This kind of discrepancy between the outward portrayal of culture and the internal realities can lead to disillusionment among employees and a lack of trust in leadership. It's important for companies to be transparent about their practices and to genuinely invest in creating a positive workplace culture, rather than just projecting a facade for external appearances. 15.When companies overuse and overcomplicate their core values, it can lead to confusion and disconnection from what those values truly represent. "Move with purpose" is a great example. On the surface, it sounds meaningful and motivational. However, if it's not clearly defined and understood by everyone in the organization, it becomes more of a buzzword than a guiding principle. Senior management should be able to provide concrete examples of how employees can demonstrate this value in their everyday work. For "move with purpose," this could involve actions like setting clear goals, prioritizing tasks based on impact, avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy, and staying focused on the company's mission and objectives. If senior management can't provide specific examples, it suggests a lack of alignment or understanding throughout the organization. Employees need clarity on what these values mean in practice so they can incorporate them into their work effectively. Otherwise, they risk becoming meaningless slogans plastered on office walls or company websites, rather than driving real behavior and decision-making.

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Xplor Technologies Response
2y
Hi there, Thanks for taking the time to write such detailed feedback. We’re sorry to hear your experience at Xplor wasn’t a great one. That’s not what we want and why we’re always grateful for feedback. We’re a young company, with big growth ambitions, and we’re determined to keep improving. You’re right that part of our strategy to grow is through smart M&A (mergers and acquisitions), and we’ve been incredibly transparent about that with our people. For example, following our last two acquisitions, we filmed video interviews with our Executives to talk about the acquisition, explain why we’re doing it and discuss the impact it will have. We then share these videos on our internal Workplace platform and email every colleague with a link to the video. We encourage everyone to ask questions, leave comments and tag our Executives, so they can directly reply to any questions. We’re proud that over 85% of our people log onto Workplace every month, to stay connected with all that’s going on, and watch these updates. We’re also proud of the journey we’re on to bring our values to life. These values are aspirational and we’re open about that. We’re all working together to make them real. For example, one of our values is Make Life Simple. And we hear from Xplorers through our regular engagement surveys that at times it can be difficult to get things done at Xplor. That’s why we’re putting so much effort into simplifying our tech stack and consolidating our internal platforms. These things take time, but we’re making tangible progress. For example, every Xplorer is now on the same instance of Microsoft 365. That wasn’t the case a year ago, but it is now, and we’re grateful to everyone at Xplor who is helping us make these strides. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are embedded in our culture at Xplor and we take pride in our employee-led Inclusion strategy. Our I&D Council is made up of Xplorers at all levels, from across our many regions, and together they set the agenda and pace for our DE&I work at Xplor. In our last all-employee engagement survey, 82% of Xplorers said they feel they can bring their authentic self to work, which was an increase of 5% since we first asked that question back in 2021. Every year we also have an independent third-party review of our DE&I efforts and this year we were pleased to receive the distinction of a “Leading Organization” from them. We shared the results of this external review with all employees, so all Xplorers can see the progress we’re making in this area. Finally, we’re really proud of the increase in customer satisfaction that we’re seeing across our product suite. From Google reviews to NPS scores, the hard work our teams have put in to improving our products and refining our customer service processes, is making a difference. And while there’s still a long way to go, we’ve come far, and we’re not stopping here. Thanks again for taking time to share your feedback, and we wish you all the best in your next role. Stefan Welack Global Talent Acquisition Enablement Lead

Explore other reviews about Xplor Technologies

5.0
28 Apr 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Love working remote, Lots of support.

Cons

I have not one negative thing to say.

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2.0
30 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I still get to work with the team I was acquired with (those who weren't unceremoniously canned at least).

Cons

-Insists on a hyper rigid corporate model, and it shows everywhere. In product development, leadership, HR. There's so much bureaucracy and rigidity in getting an answer to anything and all it means at the end of the day is that everyone you go to for help or clarification will pass the buck to the next guy. -Zero regard for employees as people. These people are cheap cheap cheap. It shows in salaries and benefits (worst US medical premium coverage I've ever seen), but also in subjecting employees to using terrible outdated tools, and in laying people off at a moment's notice with no regard for them or the workloads of those left behind. HR/People team where it seems like nobody knows what to do or how to help; everything is someone else's job. -It is a mess internally. It's a company made up of 20+ other products/brands, and nobody's talking to each other because nobody even can talk to each other. Everyone's on different systems, different payroll, different Slack, different Teams, two different versions of every policy, it's a joke. -It's depressing as hell watching them buy up other companies, fire half of them, and suck the soul out of those left behind. -I had a job I loved before we merged with Xplor. It's been less than a year here now and I cannot get out of here fast enough.

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