Extremely Toxic Culture and Heavy-handed Managers - Anonymous employee AbbVie Employee Review

1.0
Sep 14, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Deceptively good benefits that come at a great cost (check your self-respect at the door before walking to your desk).

Cons

Very disrespectful treatment, pervasive verbal abuse in private so you don't have any witnesses to back you up, the HR dept. ALWAYS supports managers and NEVER the employee so the confidential Aware-line where employees can report issues is a big joke. Schedule is very rigid even in areas/functions where rigidity is not needed, so there's complete disregard for an employee's occasional need for flextime. Flextime requests even count against the employee during performance reviews! There's hardly any cooperation across various departments and most departments hold back information from each other that would otherwise make it easier to make and execute key business decisions. The validity of verbal or even written (email) agreements between project team members is questioned repeatedly which causes further delays in execution. But most of all, it's the management's inhumane treatment of employees in exchange for a few breadcrumbs that only the least competent employees with little or no self-respect will accept.

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AbbVie Response
9y
Transparency and open communication are important to the culture of AbbVie and it doesn’t sound like that was your experience. We’re continuing to evolve and to work towards a culture we’d pride ourselves in as an organization. We appreciate your review and your frank message.

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Cons

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1.0
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Pros

Big Pharma Name Recognition: Having Allergan/AbbVie on your resume provides industry visibility.

Cons

Extreme Governance & Bureaucracy: Allergan is paralyzed by red tape. There are far too many governance layers just to get basic regulatory strategies vetted out. Flawed Compliance Infrastructure: Product approvals are heavily dependent on documentation. However, current records are completely inadequate. Management fundamentally fails to understand how these systems are interlinked. Unqualified & Absentee Leadership: The leader with department oversight completely lacks the expected knowledge and experience for this level, making her a massive liability. She is rarely in the office but knows exactly how to work the system. She aggressively pushes for unnecessary, in-person regulatory meetings solely to accumulate personal travel points rather than to mitigate actual business risks. Disastrous Transition Management: The leadership transition wreaked total havoc across the department. Negligent HR Department: HR shows zero interest in investigating why good talent is leaving the company. Alarming Job Security Signs: It is a massive red flag when a leader encourages employees to apply for roles entirely unrelated to their expertise, or receiving automated AI notifications about job openings outside your department.

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