You may keep key employees around for a while post-merger if they signed a retention agreement. But, says a Towers Watson study, unless that agreement is backed up by "show-me-the-love" treatment, many will depart once the retention period ends.

The 2014 Global M&A Retention Study elicited information from some 248 executives worldwide who had been involved in a recent merger. While 68 percent said they retained as many as 80 percent of those who'd inked retention agreements, 43 percent were able to say they hung on to the same percentage of pact signers a year after the merger.

And the primary reason cited? Employees said uncertainty over a changing corporate culture, where they no longer felt valued and comfortable.

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Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.