Many organizations are going through change right now.  

Some of the largest hospitals and health systems in the country are being acquired by other health systems.  

They’re going through mergers and restructuring.  

They’re being bought out.  

There are consolidations. 

When these consolidations happen, your job is at risk. 

There may be three people in your position and only room for one of you around the executive table.  

So the question is, if you’re going through a merger, how do you survive it?  

What should you look for inside that process?  

You should understand that this will continue to happen in healthcare.  

We will not be exempt from mergers and acquisitions at any point going forward, because there’s an effort to try to consolidate as margins get tighter. 

As budgets become more restrictive, hospitals are living more check to check than anybody would ever imagine.  

The Coronavirus crisis of 2020 showed us a lot about how hard it is for hospitals to make it.  

There were some hospitals that had 20,000 employees and laid off nearly 4,000. 

Other hospitals had 10,000 employees and laid off 10% of their workforce.  

Many of those hospitals didn’t survive after coronavirus. 

It is your responsibility to know that these changes are coming and be prepared for them.  

Here is how to survive a merger: 

1. Always keep your resume updated. 

Make sure you have a LinkedIn profile and that you’re connecting with people online. 

Whenever a merger comes, you need to have friends in places that might create an opportunity for you. 

You’ve gotta stay up on what’s going down. 

2. Add value beyond your job description. 

We all have a job to do.  

You’ve got a long list of things that you’ve got to get done every day.  

But have you made yourself indispensable to your colleagues and coworkers? 

Are you just doing your job, or are you helping them to do their job?  

Are you contributing to them in ways that they don’t see? 

Will they see that they wouldn’t have been able to do as well without you being there? 

When you have a leader that not only does their job well, but also add to other people’s value, they make the organization better.  

It’s harder to get rid of people like that.  

And you don’t just want to add value inside the organization.  

You also want to add value outside of the organization.  

You want to add value into the community.  

Adding value into the community is being an asset to the local nonprofits, the local boards, the local community partnerships.  

When you become a known quantity in your community, your organization will realize they’ve got a large, external benefit from you being a part of the organization. 

But most importantly, always be prepared for what you’re going to do next. 

Do you want to stay in health care?  

Do you want to continue to work in hospitals the way you have, or do you want to go do something else?  

There’s lots of things you can do post-merger. 

It’s up to you to spend time thinking about it.