Biogen UK: Excellent benefits/perks; childish, disappointing people management
Pros
Biogen is a nice company in general, with excellent benefits and perks. Premises are nice, clean, the restaurant is very good, we have free coffee and fresh fruit. The company pipeline is interesting and working with horribly disabling diseases is motivating as you can feel you help people with your work. Flexibility is really good: working from home is allowed, flexible hours are encouraged. The above is usually what keeps people in the company despite the Cons.
Cons
People management is the real Con in Biogen. In some departments (I can't speak for all of them, clearly), professionals are attracted with promising talks about learning and development, but then there is no real training and no real development. There are SOPs to read, there are some soft skills courses, but there is no coaching whatsoever: you are thrown into your job with no support, and you are expected to perform brilliantly in no time. You might be assigned a reference person, but there is no coaching culture at all; they will not help and might be annoyed instead, because you represent "additional workload". Nothing can be done about it: flagging the issue will only put you under a negative light. HR is totally useless (other than being physically absent: it's all managed via a web portal). Leadership does not really listen, despite claiming the opposite. Decision-making processes are secretive and employees are put in front of final changes about their job and career with no consultation. Promotions do not go necessarily to people deserving them; there is in fact a nasty inclination to promote people who trump on colleagues but smile and wink to the leadership team. Recruitment is painful: it takes ages to hire new people (and in the meantime we work like dogs to cover), they are not necessarily qualified, they are promised career development but often end up doing leg job. The best job postings are only opened in the US despite the company claiming it is a global environment. The opinions I am sharing are not only mine; these topics are commonly discussed amongst colleagues.