AstraZeneca Employee Reviews about "people"

Cons

If you want to be a scientist and don’t have a PhD, you’ll have a very difficult time progressing in a career here. Fresh kids out of the program start 2-3 levels higher than those who have been in industry for 10 years or more. You have to work your tail off to get to the level of fresh PhD’s. Often time, it takes 15-20 years of experience to get to the level that new PhD’s with 0 years of industry experience come in as. The reasoning being that this is an unofficial reward based system to incentivize getting your PhD. You do find some competitiveness as per most large companies that gets annoying.

Cons

A lot of positions start out as contract, may not be possible for everyone to take a contract role.

Cons

Very little communication from departmental directors to their subordinates. I was there for over two years in a temporary position. The departmental director that I reported to seldom, if ever, spoke to me, nor did this person ever show (to me) any interest in the work that I performed. When it was necessary for me to speak to this person, I was treated like an interruption and a nuisance. I was eventually let go and my responsibilities were given to a full-time employee who was already working 45-50 hours a week. The department that I was a part of was very over-worked and very under-staffed, yet temporary workers like me were being let go because the departmental director did not want us on the budget any longer. Apparently, there was no thought given to the work load of the employees who were forced to do their own job and to take on another person's job. After being there as long as I was, I feel qualified to say that this facility is poorly managed from middle management downward, with few exceptions. I did all that they asked me for over two years- I was trying to prove myself and show my loyalty to them, but that did not matter to the decision-makers.

Cons

difficult to get promoted. More emphasis paid to doing pet projects rather than day job. Confusion over the brand of Medimmune, Astra Zeneca (AZ) pay the bills, everyone has heard of AZ Medi US just need to get over it and move on with the brand.

Cons

Since you are a contractor with entry level experience there isn't a lot of opportunities to be a fulltime.

Cons

some vendors are not as easy to work with.

Cons

Upper Management is not good and occupied by one state people who are partial to their group alone. No promotions, it is very very very very difficult to get promoted in AstraZeneca GTC (no matter how you work). Resource allocation to be improved and not single resource should be dumped with many projects. Pressurizing employees to come back to office after wave 1 and wave 2 by not understanding the situation. As a pharmaceutical company, I didn't expect this kind of approach from AstraZeneca during this pandemic. Please understand the pandemic and try to avoid return to workplace. Try to continue work from home.

Cons

Think twice if you are ready to join AZ. The managers (Lab) manage to be very powerful . They (managers) realize AZ is first a Lab company. Without their work - results- products , AZ will probably not exist. Lab managers in fact are not managers. They are first Scientists turn in to managers. THIS IS ONE Of THE REAL PROBLEM of AZ especially for the lab. HR of AZ don't have a say - HR is there to support the lab managers not the EMPLOYEES who in reality is working hard to make the data available and for future key decisions.. Last -Management ALWAYS PROMOTE the same people over and over (same names every other 3 years). You end up create unnecessary tension and destroy the work environment you and the Leadership are trying and working HARD to promote. This is one on the biggest weakness of AZ - Unfortunately the Senior Leadership faint to not see.

Cons

wage is average to poor for the sector. Little room for progression with most people staying for at least 5-8 years in their band. Very resistant to change and were often met with a "we do it this way because we have always done it this way" mantra - despite all of the change an initiatives from the top which were often meerly just words rather than actions. Constant rounds of reorganisation and redundancies meant that productivity had dropped at least 50% as people were too bust working out where the next job was going to be!

Cons

Pay is low and recognition is quite low although they are trying. Very hard to get promoted and not all Managers are good managers