Bachem is a Swiss company. That is not a bad thing. There are many great Swiss pharmaceuticals doing great work around the globe. However, the thinking that 'we know the best' is always at the heart of the Bachem's cultural problem. The amalgamation of culture (brought by people from different background all over the world) in the USA is neither understood nor tolerated at Bubbendorf. Amazingly, Swiss culture is very methodical, so there are always meetings to discuss options, but the decisions are always taken by Bubbendorf, no matter how wrong they are. These discussions give 'hope' to the US management but is a total waste of time. The time will be better spent if the decision just came with plan for implementations (let's say how it works in China). For employees, working at floor level, mid-management level, this is a great company to work for. However, if you are a US citizen, and want to go to the top, this will not be tolerated. You will either get chopped or sidelined with a new title (as a non-playing captain). I think this is a conscious decision by the management and most of the time it worked out in the last 25 years. However, new generation of people are smarter and can see through this strategy, so the company is seeing high turnover in recent days. Despite having eligible leadership present in the US, the headquarters always brings less qualified people from Europe (read Bubbendorf - people from Vionnaz are never considered). Half of them turn out to be really good leaders (they had the potential, but they won't get the same role at the Headquarters but somehow, they can do the job in the US). However, other half makes a big mess, stumbles, make mistakes and go back after 3 year rotation leaving the department messier than before. During this 3-year period, they are untouchable (means they cannot get fired per their contract), so someone from the US leadership gets the chop as a scapegoat. This was not so common in Torrance but rampant at Vista. The new COO at the Americas is from finance background and nothing but money can talk to her. The company is losing business (post pandemic shift and no investment in Oligos in the Americas region) so the layoffs are part of life and should be expected. However, the selection of the people in the layoffs were quite interesting! It seems, the decision was based on $$$ only and not on anything else. hence, no matter what value the employee had in the company, they were laid off based on how much money company would save by laying them off. That meant many top-level excellent people almost reaching their retirement age were let go. Bachem is a public company although most of the shares are held by the founder and his family. Profit sharing is restricted to top level management, so it makes sense to chop off the tree from the top, however, it does not make sense to get rid of people with immaculate track records. This only means one thing: either the management is dumb (which I highly doubt), or the company wants to roll down operation in the Americas because according to the headquarters, American sites are always losing money and being less efficient. Which is a good business decision if that was true but a sad demise of a company that once was a great place to work at.
