QC does nothing to retain employees - Analytical Chemist Lonza Employee Review

1.0
5 Sept 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Location. It’s great having several opportunities to have a science job in Bend Or.

Cons

Lonza Bend QC/micro Lab is NOT the department you want to work for. Even though they’re are always short handed-it is for good reason. Supervisors and upper management do nothing to support retaining good employees. They hire new inexperienced people for 15K+ more than what their current employees who have been there 5-10 years make and they refuse to discuss pay raises to keep employees who are dedicated. Everyone has started sharing what they all make since management keeps it hush hush. The AD and PD groups also started sharing with QC what they make and for the same grade level job chem 1/2/sr PD/AD groups get paid 15-20K more. Advancement and training is a joke. QC-Bend management has a checklist of training you need to do before advancing to the next level of scientist, however finding the time to do it is difficult, it usually is on your own time. Which being paid salary means you’re doing it for free. But once you’ve checked all those boxes plus more-management “updates” their list or then just tells you “it’s more than just the list…” they hold you back and only advance their favorites. There has not been a new Sr Chemist promotion in at least 4-5 years and some of the Chemist II’s have been there for 6-10 years and are more than qualified. 1/3 of the current staff are applying for other companies and a couple of people are applying to other departments. QC-Bend supervisors are asked in all hands meetings what management plans to do to retain current employees and they don’t even answer-they say it’s a 1:1 conversation with your supervisor…but when in 1:1’s they say if you’re not happy then look elsewhere. They don’t care about retaining. Chemists there work hard, they care and give quality work yet management does not stick up for them. They have a couple of dedicated chemists who help out wherever they’re needed but they stay as Chem 1 and Chem 2’s and don’t even get recognition for taking on others work or schedules who have quit and they too are getting burnt out for not getting recognition or even getting fair pay. Other departments kept getting raises (last year and again this last month) to help retain employees but QC-Bend does nothing.

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Lonza Response
1y
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We would appreciate any more detail you could provide us on these issues by emailing employee-feedback@lonza.com.

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Cons

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2.0
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Pros

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Cons

1) Work/life balance - leaders don't honor paid time off. Many teams expect you to be available during paid time off periods 2) Benefits - employer doesn't offer employer-subsidized vision insurance 3) Holidays - employer doesn't offer MLK Day and Juneteeth as paid days off, indicating how little they value diversity, inclusion, and belonging 4) Promotions - political; not based on merit 5) Mandated 5 day return-to-office to enable "in person collaboration" while at the same time offshoring jobs to cheaper markets. 6) PTO - based on tenure, but I think Lonza prefers high turnover so they don't have to give people time off (if they even honor it in the first place - see con 1) 7) Lack of harmonization - for an established CDMO, I was surprised at the level of misalignment between sites and the lack of standardization of processes

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