Big news for human resources departments: Two of the leading employee management solutions providers are joining up. Last week, Kronos and Ultimate Software announced a planned merger to create one of the world's largest cloud providers of workforce management and human capital management services.

The deal is expected to close at the end of March, will bring together some 12,000 employees worldwide and create an enterprise valued at $22 billion. In addition, it will bring Ultimate's UltiPro HCM and Employee Experience products under the same umbrella as Workforce Dimensions from Kronos, Kronos Workforce Ready and will put them in better position to compete with other market leaders, such as ADP, Workday, Oracle or Ceridian.

"The combination of Ultimate and Kronos paves the way to deliver the next generation of employee-facing solutions that will set the standard for the workforce of the future," said Adam Rogers, chief executive officer of Ultimate Software. "This merger will enable our more than 12,000 inspired people around the world to deliver innovation in human capital management faster than ever before. Both companies remain fully committed to their core strengths as well as to the combined benefits that the new company will bring to employees and customers."

Speaking to the Society of Human Resource Management about what this deal means for HR professionals, industry analyst and founder of Aptitude Research Madeline Laurano recommends putting in a call to your service rep ASAP. "HR customers should be asking, 'Will the points of contact change?"Will customer support or sales reps change? If I'm in mid-implementation, does that get interrupted?' There will surely be a transition period where it's business as usual, but it's appropriate for customers to start to have that dialogue now."

The companies have announced few other details about the planned future together, such as new products or how the new alignment will affect relationships and compatibility with competitors' products and services.

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Kronos, Ultimate Software announce merger

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