...Do you negotiate going in or later once you are a known quantity to the new owners?
You will not be in a strong position to negotiate after the transition.
The real problem is that you are not really in a strong position to negotiate now either. When one company buys another one, there is wholesale turmoil, and it is very hard to get the attention of anyone senior enough to really make a decision. My sense of it is that a hospital is going to consider facilities as a necessary evil and not in their mainstream business, even though it is vital to their business. Negotiate too much and you will be labeled a troublemaker, and a highly paid one at that, by the new management.
All that being said, the best negotiating tool you can have is a current resume. They are going to be fitting you into an existing job description. Your value to the new management comes in two areas. First you have both the experience and the expertise they need to fill that job description. Second, you have been doing much, much more than that job description entails and that has been very beneficial in controlling costs for the old management.
Get someone with experience and expertise to help you write a resume. You will have to pay someone with real expertise, to get the best help, but don't cheap out on this. It is a specialized skill, and most people will sell themselves short. You will be dealing with someone who has read thousands of resumes, and even though you might read a book on this, you need someone who has written hundreds of resumes for clients. Contact a firm that specializes in outplacement and pay them for a resume. Don't hesitate on this.
Plus, a really good, professional resume will put them on notice that you have other options without you ever having to say a word about it. Threatening to leave does not go over well -- making yourself as attractive as possible increases your value to them and others.
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About 10 years before I stopped working for a company, there was a shakeup at the company and my boss was fired. No one had the stones to fire me, although I felt that I was on shaky ground, and no one really wanted me either.
I made the conscious decision that instead of putting in extra hours at work, I would develop a money making sideline and put more time/effort/money into the rental real estate business. This had two effects:
(1) My income increased, and in a way that was not dependent on the company. This gave me more personal security, and the confidence to stand up for what was right at the company instead of what management wanted on a short term basis. I was careful to express things in a positive way, and not just disagree with poor decisions.
(2) In turn, this increased my value to the company, and my position became more secure. Pay increased also, but I quickly saw that working for myself, I got 100% of the benefit of my efforts, while working for someone else I got very much less.
So, even though I was putting less time in at work, my job became more secure, and my total earnings became much better. Between salary and side income I was doing better than managers two levels above me. Another benefit is that when I stopped working for the company the side income came with me.
Fast forward to the present and today I sign paychecks on the front instead of the back. I have relationships with vendors for the same reasons you did at your work. I get better deals and better support. It costs me less, it is faster, and if something breaks a week out of warranty, they come & fix it just to keep my business. I
make policy instead of having to follow it.
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In addition to TBN, I spend some time on personal finance websites. mostly aimed at retirement planning.
One of the big paradoxes I see there is that they tilt heavily toward investing in equities (stocks & mutual funds) and bonds. With some amount of attention/recommendation to real estate and then primarily as publicly traded REITs. (Real Estate Investment Trusts), and lots of bias against rental real estate, because owning it is like having a job.
OTOH, very frequent advice is that one way to stretch your retirement assets is to either work longer, or take a part-time job.
Not very many supposedly smart people make the connection that they are right, owning rentals is like having a part-time job, and that this part-time job is exactly what they tell you to do in the next breath after they tell you it is a big disadvantage of rentals.
I suspect the real reason is that financial advisors make commissions when people buy mutual funds, and when people buy bonds, but they don't make anything when people buy rentals.
