Battelle reviews

Within finance/accounting departments, it seems like there are many employees who have gotten a job because they knew someone within the organization. This makes it hard to see the employees as high-performing and I tend to see them as part of a long chain of favoritism. Also, none of the employees strike me as employees with high aspirations. Most of them seem to be very happy with their jobs and would love to stay in them for many years to come (which is why a large portion of people in Battelle have worked there for 15+ years). These may be pros to some people, but I'd rather have a more competitive environment.

Oh boy, where to start..... First, working at Battelle is a bit like working at a car rental company. The researchers and people who are direct charge to project are like the cars - the company only profits while the cars are used to the fullest extent possible. Unfortunately, if you are a project person, getting yourself rented, so to speak, is entirely up to you. YOU are expected to find work and stay on project as much as possible. This is very, very hard, as Battelle has no formalism to get you into the system. It's all luck and networking. And, if you are not rented/on project, you are basically released. Also, the need to minimize off project hours (aka - OVERHEAD) has gotten to the point that things like group meetings and so forth are held at lunch - in other words, on your time. As other reviewers have noted, executive level management is a BIG problem. When the last CEO (Kohrt?) came in, they went to a profit motivated management system. They seem to be more interested in being a management company than a technical R and D company - the offical Battelle background document, for instance, talks mostly about the national labs that Battelle manages under contract. The Columbus campus is mentioned once, at the end, as a major technical center - period. Also, all of the execs are from other industries - most appear to have been let go from their other companies, and Battelle was a nice place to land. For example, the CFO, Martin Ingilis, was at Ford about the time their stock price went into the dumpster. Kohrt was at Kodak when they went through their meltdown in the late 90's. The head of HR is from DHL. The head of corporate communications is from The Limted if I recall correctly. These people haven't made a sucessful transition to a non-profit contract research company in my opinion. They worry about things that make sense in their old industries, but not a research company - for example, they went through a lot of effort to define a Battelle "brand". including fancy new slides with a color bar on the bottom with meanings attached to the colors. This makes a great deal of sense when you're selling jeans, when a cheap pair from Walmart will do as well as something from a fancy store that costs 3 times as much, but not at a research company. This is not to say that people cannot suceed at Battelle - obviously some do, and for the adminstrative, non project types, Battelle can be a decent enough place to work. But it is a hard place to ultimately suceed in with your a scientist. They are a number of other factors as well - the place does favor ex-military over everyone else it seems - but I have said enough.