Pros
- The pay is (now!) competitive, and raises are (now!) regular for some departments and positions (although not all). - It's a great place to get your feet wet in the research industry. - You can gain a lot of experience at many different types of studies. - Many of the US-based team managers are really good at their jobs (CMs, PMs) and are fun to work with. - They really do make attempts to foster a sense of community. - Benefits are decent. - There is a pervading positive feeling about working at the company, despite its issues. - There are some really great people there...I made several lifelong friends out of the experience.
Cons
- This company underwent a huge restructuring a few years back, and the employees paid for it. They changed people's positions and roles, re-assigning employees and relegating them to new positions without asking for their preferences. - There was, and remains, little appreciation/recognition for expertise of longtime employees. This company has been all too willing to let people go (I witnessed 4 mass layoffs over the 10 years I was there, and that was not pretty). Nowadays, employees are turned loose or encouraged to quit if they don't fit the newly redesigned "mold" of the newly redefined positions. - Line managers are quick to play favorites, and tend to be passive-aggressive in their behavior when challenged. Ultimately, they are not experienced at doing the job for which they are supposedly providing guidance. - In the Project Management and Start-up departments, the condescension from line managers and department heads is palpable; they literally treat their employees like children. New employees are hired at entry level positions with low pay and are babied, coddled and flattered with a forced "aren't we having FUN now, kids?" attitude. More experienced or senior employees undergo general indifference, petty attacks, gossip behind their backs, and subtle devaluations at the hands of their line managers...yet are absolutely expected to pick up the slack for the new employees' lack of training by those line managers. - Managers of the Project Management and SSU departments make feeble, insincere attempts to solicit people's opinions on team calls, while strongly discouraging one's opinion on 1:1 calls. - There is a general discouragement of moving between departments & achieving promotions within the company. Most who do manage to transition have to go through an arduous, challenging struggle just to get "approval" to make the move. Many do not succeed at breaking through these walls...so they leave. - For those employees who weathered years of internal changes, there is a pervading air of "just deal with it" when it comes to facing problems that the managers themselves have created. The majority of EU-based project managers are only experienced in their own area of residence. This inexperience creates problems when managing global teams and studies, and causes these inexperienced managers to either lean too heavily on their other country counterparts (creating more work for support members), or ignore them and their opinions entirely, thereby jeopardizing the study. - Development of new systems and processes are inefficient and are now so micromanaged that everyone does the job the same way, yet no one does the job well. All studies are not alike and there is no consideration for that. - The longer I stayed, the less valued I felt. The last year or two I was there, there were frequent, blatant discussions of how many people were "jumping ship."By the time I myself left, I was more than happy to walk that plank.
