As a German company, Bayer experiences both positive and negative outcomes. The company tends to be more conservative in risk-taking, and career growth is slower, often based on seniority rather than performance. While the company remains very process-oriented, efforts around DSO (Digital Sales Optimization) aim to improve this.
The workforce needs serious retraining and skill set improvement given the advancements in AI. Many employees joined over a decade ago and are not fully utilizing their primary skills. They often become people managers or work with consultants. When 80% of the workforce is focused on management and delegating tasks to consultants and vendors, the company loses out on acquiring and leveraging essential know-how. This also creates a negative culture, where employees compete over self-promotion and redundant meetings instead of rolling up their sleeves and doing the actual work.
Bayer needs to invest heavily in acquiring more US-based talent. Currently, much of the workforce is concentrated in Europe, while the market opportunity and talent pool in the US are larger. Increasing the US-based workforce would help Bayer compete more effectively with other US-based pharmaceutical companies.
It's impractical for European managers to oversee US employees. European colleagues often have smaller paychecks due to subsidized healthcare and other social benefits, and they enjoy more days off compared to their US counterparts. Asking a manager who earns less than their employee for a raise can be demotivating. Additionally, bonuses are much more valued in the US than in Europe. These cultural and economic differences suggest that having European or US managers oversee employees in the other region is not practical.
The R&D pipeline suffers from a lack of investment and proper management. Pharma R&D workflows take years, and Bayer has experienced significant turbulence with many people leaving and joining in a short span. Unfortunately, this situation does not seem to be changing anytime soon.
