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      Costello Medical

      Engaged Employer

      Costello Medical reviews

      3.7

      62% would recommend to a friend

      (105 total reviews)

      Sophie Costello

      87% approve of CEO

      81% positive business outlook

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Costello Medical has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 105 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Costello Medical employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology industry (3.5 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      105 reviews
      2.0
      Dec 1, 2022

      Toxic work culture

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Junior staff members (and some of the more recent senior staff members) are lovely and will go out of their way to help you. Nice social environment, due to lovely junior staff members. Variety of tasks performed.

      Cons

      The focus on maintaining a positive work environment is used as a way to silence staff members who have concerns over work-load or stress. Staff members are given impossible work deadlines and loads, then made to feel they are underperforming if they cannot reach these impossible deadlines. No staff members can reach these targets working the contracted hours, instead they all work over-time - however this is often done in secret to appear as if the deadline were actually feasible. Staff members who are honest about work loads and stress are then informed they are not productive enough, or are not maintaining a positive attitude, whereas they are really just being honest. This can leave staff feeling they are not good enough, when in reality the expectations are a farce. Numerous staff members have left due to burn out for the above reasons. Many who remain feel the same, yet are afraid to break the toxic culture of positive silence. To maintain this environment, they hire perfectionists who struggle to admit when they are struggling, thus hide that, suffer in silence, and subsequently maintain this toxic environment. Due to all the above reasons, work life balance is largely unattainable. Interns are performing the same role as Medical Writers/Analysts, yet are paid around 10,000 less per year. Exceedingly white and middle class.

      avatar
      Costello Medical Response
      3y
      Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback about your experience at Costello Medical. We are sorry to hear of your concerns about your previous workload; we recognise that due to the nature of our work, there will inevitably be periods of increased workload and that client demands can be high, but we want to ensure that unsustainable workloads are not the norm. Having periods to reset and recalibrate are really important – often referred to as peaks and troughs. All colleagues are encouraged to speak with their line manager, Division Head or the People team if they have concerns about their workload. This is an area we monitor closely and we have taken many proactive steps this year to ensure that colleagues continue to feel supported at work; this has included increased monitoring of working hours, pastoral support from the People team, training for our core and senior teams on confidence and perfectionism at work, training for line managers on supporting their line managees, and recruitment efforts to ensure that project teams are well resourced. Results from our 2022 annual Employee Survey showed that over 86% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that their line manager supports their wellbeing and so we hope that this speaks true of most of our colleagues’ experiences. We are also proud of the friendly, supportive and collaborative culture that we have maintained; our annual Employee Survey results showed that 94% of respondents feel proud to work at Costello Medical, and we were pleased to receive our highest ever engagement score in the Best Companies survey last year. Thank you once again for taking the time to provide your feedback.
      2.0
      Feb 9, 2023

      Pressure and cliqueyness

      Analyst
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Company is well structured and there is a lot of opportunity to work on a wide breadth of projects. Most of the new/newly promoted staff are nice. Path for development is clear and good feedback on work.

      Cons

      Only now that I'm at a different agency I realise the level of control on your emails and working practices at Costello is not normal. It would make me feel on edge and anxious constantly. Work/life balance was terrible. I started early and finished late every day. I'd have frequent ultra late nights/weekend work, and I know for a fact I wasn't the only one, but it's just not spoken about. Fun is always "manufactured fun". They try hard but there was no sense of real friendship or cohesion within the team. People speak behind your back about you to your manager rather than talk to you first. Leaves a feeling of unsafety. At least while I was there, no real diversity. I worked with primarily white, privately educated, oxbridge graduates.

      avatar
      Costello Medical Response
      3y
      Thank you for taking the time to review your experience at Costello Medical. Whilst we are pleased to see that you enjoyed the wide breadth of projects that you worked on, as well as the clarity of development pathways, we are sorry to hear that your work-life balance was affected. As we have detailed in our previous review responses, this is an area that we actively monitor and take proactive steps to ensure that working patterns do not become unsustainable. Our Employee Survey data shows that most colleagues feel a sense of belonging at Costello Medical; in our 2022 survey, 88% of respondents were strongly satisfied or satisfied with their relationships and support offered at work, whilst over 80% strongly agreed or agreed that they feel a sense of belonging at the company. Whilst we might organise fun activities, such as our divisional and company-wide socials, we hope that fun is had organically, too; we were pleased to see that when we asked all UK colleagues how they would describe working at Costello Medical in 2022, “friendly”, “supportive” and “fun” were the top three descriptors. We would also like to note that our colleagues across the UK were hired from over 40 different universities, and so please be assured that we actively recruit and indeed welcome new joiners from a wide variety of institutions. In addition to this, we have a dedicated Equality & Inclusion taskforce, consisting of colleagues across the company in a variety of roles, who support our diversity and inclusion efforts. A key project launching this year is to increase our collection of E&I-related data to inform our actions in this area. Finally, I can assure you that individuals speaking to line managers with feedback in the first instance is always done so with the right intention. We generally encourage colleagues to provide constructive feedback directly to line managers, whether during our performance review season or throughout the year, so that line managers can disseminate feedback in the format in which their line managee would prefer, and can also look out for trends in the feedback provided. We actively encourage 360 feedback from colleagues across all roles so that line managers can see a truly representative picture of an individual’s performance and contributions at work, and we are pleased with the amount of 360 feedback that is provided across the company.
      4.0
      Jan 16, 2022

      Interesting work but work/life balance is off with a young senior team

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      -Company is young - I get on and look forward to spending time with colleagues -Motivated work environment that's full of very hard workers. I find myself wanting to show up in projects for my colleagues more than I do the outcome -Management show genuine interest in their staff once you raise a concern with them -Work is of a high quality, feel pretty proud about some of the things I have produced -You are able to progress -Pro bono work is feasible so you can wash away working with big pharmaceutical clients -Work is often genuinely interesting

      Cons

      -Work/life ratio is poor considering the benefits. People mostly leave the office after 6pm having arrived mostly between 8-8:30, despite being junior members of staff. 'Early finish' allows people to leave 30 minutes earlier than normal, and most people start work earlier on those days and still don't get to finish by then. It's never talked about. There is a feeling of exhaustion in the air. Was way worse during lockdown when management's response was to motivate staff around efficiency -Quick progression means line managers can be inexperienced. Your one support contact is someone who left uni a couple of years ago who has not seen people burn out. I'm sure they have lots of training but that training will be a 45 minute slide set that was bottom of the priority list for whoever made/presented it because they themselves will have been bombarded with work. I've been spoken to appallingly by some senior team members who were recently promoted and don't know how to assert themselves without trying to force a hierarchy. -Not much opportunity to say no, you're just expected to take on more than you can chew on a daily basis. There's a culture of stress because of the young line management - people are desperate to please - which means saying no is met with stress and you are made to feel like you're not pulling your weight. it has to become a health concern for no to be listened to -Analysts often get shoehorned into wherever they're needed -Perfectionistic culture where you get called out for the smallest things. Everyone wants to learn, but getting called out for tiny things often is demotivating and makes you feel bad at your job - Like in all companies, HR work for the company not for the people

      avatar
      Costello Medical Response
      4y
      Thank you for your detailed response. We appreciate you taking the time to share your personal observations. We recognise that the significant growth we have enjoyed, and are set to continue to enjoy, brings challenges and we are collectively working hard to navigate these. Feedback such as yours goes some way to helping us identify where attention is needed. You’ll soon have the employee survey to give detailed feedback on all matters relating to your experience of working for Costello Medical. We hope you will use this as well as the open channels to the management team to bring your suggestions for how we continue to build our company successfully. Constructive feedback given in the current performance review round will support all staff, including line managers and project managers, in their approaches and professional development so we hope you will participate in this process too.
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