By M.E. Cohen for The Washington Post

By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 11, 1998; Page F09

Yikes!

Most likely that was your first thought when you walked into the office and heard that your company has just announced plans to merge with another firm.

That exclamation was followed by these frenzied thoughts: Am I going to lose my job? Am I going to be demoted? Will my salary decrease? What will happen to my benefits?

But you needn't be so apocalyptic. Mergers aren't always as bad as they initially seem. While changes are surely imminent, that doesn't mean most people will lose their jobs.

"Right now about 15 to 20 percent of workers lose their jobs when their companies merge," says John Challenger, whose Chicago-based career firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, closely tracks merger statistics.

So it's not time to fret. Instead, you should be working harder than ever to ensure that you're not among that 15 to 20 percent.

To help you figure out how to position yourself when your company merges, we talked to a number of experts; here's what they said:

In Banking: Visibility

"The first thing is to do a major check on your attitude," says Charles Cates, executive vice president for the Washington region of Cleveland-based Interim Career Counseling. "There's a tendency to keep your head down; out of mind, out of sight. That's the exact opposite of what you need to be doing."

According to Cates, you want to become an "agent of change." Volunteer for whatever work is out there, particularly the projects that are designed to bridge the two outfits. The idea is to gain visibility with the people who are going to be making the transition decisions.

"What you want to do in this transition period," Cates says, "is become more involved in plan making. That way it's more likely that you'll be a part of the plan moving forward." The best way to do this is simply to go to your manager and ask what you can do, he adds.

Beyond doing more work, you also should be retooling, Cates says. Taking whatever training classes you can is another way to show the bosses that you're not a wait-and-see kind of employee. Also, you should find out what skills will be necessary for the merged firm and try to take classes that cover those.

In banking, most new organizations are emphasizing the retail end of their business and trimming down on the commercial side, says Fritz Elmendorf, spokesman for the Arlington-based Consumer Bankers Association. Therefore, workers should either brush up on or start learning about retail issues to increase their chances of being a part of the new team, he says.

Elmendorf also recommends signing up for one of the proliferating number of continuing education courses on bank management offered within firms.

You also should be finding out about the nature of the other company. For instance, NationsBank Corp. employees should be checking out Bank America right now. Bank America is based in San Francisco, therefore it serves a client base that's different from Charlotte-based NationsBank's. It's also very likely that it has a different culture. Workers also should make a concerted effort to pinpoint the key people at Bank America who would be involved with their department.

In Telecommunications: Initiative

"We're in a very competitive market," says Frank Walter, spokesman for District-based MCI. "But at MCI we're used to change, so our employees have learned to stay focused and perform."

MCI and other telecom companies emphasize initiative, Walter says, so workers should try harder than ever to come up with new programs or new systems that will stand out. For example, the Arlington mass markets division recently came up with the 5-cent Sundays plan. The program has had excellent results and therefore those employees will look especially good when the company combines with WorldCom, Walter says.

"In telecom there's a premium on being competitive and market driven," says George Bailey, global director of the human capital group for Bethesda-based Watson Wyatt Worldwide. "So anything workers can do to model fast-driven behavior will help you get on the new team.

"You also should embrace change," continues Bailey. "If you resist change it's like lying down in front of a train; you're not going to win. The fact is there will be job risk and job opportunity. You could lose your job or you could get one twice as big."

There are two main needs for telecom companies -- adding new technological value and maintaining the existing systems. Thus, employees ought to position themselves in one of these two areas to be attractive to the new firm.

Step one is to do more work. "Look at whatever your value is," Bailey says, "and double it. No long vacations, no leaving early."

Another useful tip is to catalogue all your work; managers from the new company will want to know what you've been doing. Having a ready-made file of your achievements will answer those questions, as well as let them know you're an organized worker.

In Defense: Attitude

"You gotta have self-confidence in your own capabilities," says Ken Frieder, vice president for business development at the Lexington Park, Md.-based Ketron division of Bionetics. Ketron is a defense contractor that became a part of Bionetics in 1991. "If you go in with the attitude that you're doomed, that dooms you."

But it's during this time of uncertainty, which can last for a couple of years, that you can make your mark and ensure a spot with the new firm, experts say.

The most important thing is to try to ascertain how your company, or even department, will fit into the resulting organization, says Brian Hellman, a senior analyst with the District-based Center for Defense Information. Often in the defense industry large companies will acquire smaller ones that perform different tasks from the mother company. Hence, knowing as much as possible about your existing company can be the ticket to ride.

"To the best of your ability you want to be identified with the specific programs that you know will be maintained," Hellman says.

For instance, one of Raytheon Co.'s main businesses is missile manufacturing, so workers at Hughes Electronics Corp., which became a part of Raytheon last year, would be wise to try to get on missile projects, he adds.

This was also the case at Ketron -- Bionetics largely contracts with NASA -- and the workers who were ultimately indispensable were the ones who knew the most about the high-tech systems Ketron works on, Frieder says.

If you have questions about getting ahead, you can e-mail Steven Ginsberg at ginsbergs@washpost.com