What attrition will cost you post close.

If headhunters are sharks, an acquisition announcement is blood in the water.

Most deals lose 30 to 60 percent of acquired employees in Year 1. The cost shows up as recruiting fees, ramp time, lost institutional knowledge, broken customer relationships. Two minutes to see what waiting costs.

01 / Your Deal

Who's coming over?

Enter the headcount you're acquiring. We'll start with typical proportions for Tier 1 and Tier 2, and calculate Tier 3 automatically.

How this works: Enter your total headcount and Tier 3 calculates automatically (total minus Tier 1 minus Tier 2). The Tier 1 and Tier 2 fields are pre-filled at typical proportions but you can adjust either one if your deal differs.

Total acquired headcount Full-time employees at the target company

Tier 1: Executives and VPs Typical ~5 percent of workforce. Adjust if your deal differs.

Tier 2: Managers and Senior Professionals Typical ~25 percent of workforce. Adjust if your deal differs.

Tier 3: Operational and Frontline Calculated automatically (total minus Tier 1 minus Tier 2). Typical ~70 percent.

Defaults reflect BLS occupational median wages and published compensation benchmarks. Values are total cash compensation (base plus bonus), excluding equity.

Tier 1 cash comp: Executives and VPs Default $350K. Typical band: $300K to $400K.

Tier 2 cash comp: Managers and Senior Professionals Default $100K. Typical band: $70K to $120K.

Tier 3 cash comp: Operational and Frontline Default $40K. Typical band: $30K to $50K.

02 / Your Exposure

Typical attrition costs you

As soon as the deal is announced, your acquired employees are updating their LinkedIn profiles and answering recruiting calls, wondering whether their role survives, whether their boss and colleagues stay, and whether anybody on the acquiring team will understand what they do. Having a plan can save you millions.

The Breakdown

	No Plan34% retention	Typical Planbaseline outcome	Strategic Plan88% retention
Tier 1Executives and VPs	$0	$0	$0
Tier 2Managers and Senior Pros	$0	$0	$0
Tier 3Operational and Frontline	$0	$0	$0
Total exposure	$0	$0	$0

That's what a strategic plan recovers. The gap between your typical exposure and what a strategic plan delivers. The Roadmap below is your strategic plan to close it.

03 / Get The Roadmap

Get The 30-Day M&A Retention Planning Roadmap.

A compressed planning system used by Fortune 500 acquirers. Apply it before your next close. Yours in two minutes.

Built by Dr. Klint Kendrick, PhD, SPHR. 150+ M&A transactions at Fortune 50 firms. Chair of the HR M&A Roundtable. NYU adjunct in the Human Capital Management Program.

On its way.

Check your inbox in the next few minutes for The 30-Day M&A Retention Planning Roadmap. If it doesn't arrive, check spam and add [email protected] to your contacts.

04 / Want It Tailored?

Tailor what comes after.

Pick what worries you most about losing people. Same Roadmap, personalized follow-up.

On its way.

Check your inbox in the next few minutes for The 30-Day M&A Retention Planning Roadmap, with follow-up tailored to your concern. If it doesn't arrive, check spam and add [email protected] to your contacts.

Methodology. This estimates financial exposure based on published M&A retention research. Attrition baselines from MIT Sloan (Ng & Stuart, 7,134 acquisitions), EY post-merger integration data, and PwC's 2023 M&A Integration Survey. Replacement-cost multipliers from the Saratoga Institute (Fitz-enz), Appelbaum & Milkman, and the Center for American Progress meta-analysis (Boushey & Glynn). Compensation defaults from BLS occupational median wages and Gallagher CFO benchmarks.

This is a starting point for your conversation, not a forecast. Adjust the assumptions to fit your deal.