Pros
- Open to hiring and training employees from different industries/backgrounds, which enables employees to pivot and obtain experience they may not have otherwise gained - "Reasonable" salary (nothing to write home about, but enough to pay middle-class-Greater Boston-adjusted bills) - Decent vacation - Decent health benefits - Majority of co-workers (not senior management) are very kind and will not throw you under the bus - Many senior managers are very smart and employees can learn a lot from them
Cons
- Very little respect or accommodations for parents/families; especially fathers - No corporate culture (I never realized how important corporate culture was until I worked at PAREXEL, where it is seriously lacking) - [In certain groups] little respect for work from home flexibility; even for jobs where employees work alone/behind a screen all day and have no face-to-face contact with their co-workers - CEO doesn't appear to truly appreciate women's contributions; there is a hint of an early 80s men's club hangover. Ever hear the story about the senior manager who wondered where all the good secretaries went? And his subordinate comments that they are now associate/contributor level employees? It's like that. A fair number of seniors managers appears to think that women are a novelty, except for a chosen few. There is very little top down communication, especially with regard to triaging projects. An assignment will "blow-up" and senior management will start to pay attention to it, without informing the staff actually working on the matter. Then that staff hears after the fact that Senior Manager So and So is really mad and the "heat is on". PAREXEL has an employee problem. Line managers expect one employee to do the job of five (absolutely insane, unreasonable workload) and then punish that employee/passive-aggressively suggest that employee is inadequate for a failure to meet deadlines. The "company first, people second" attitude is real and pervasive throughout the organization -- it quickly leads to burn out, resentment, and inevitable departure.