IDEXX Laboratories Lab Associate reviews

COMMUNICATION. Communication is horrible in any capacity. They adjust the base pay for inflation only for new employees, so employees who have worked here a long time often make less than new employees because their base pay does not get adjusted due to inflation, any pay increase is only promotion-based. One of my coworkers who had been with the company 5 years, works night shift (with a $3 shift diff), and is now a tech 3 makes about $4/hr less than I do, and I'm a tech 2 working here 2 years. This year my yearly pay increase (small) and promotional pay increase (ok) were both for Q1 (January), didn't go into effect until March, with no back pay. This company likes to hire staff from temp agencies, would not recommend going through a temp agency, did not have a good experience with that. Upper management is most concerned with saving money and micromanaging without thinking about how it impacts the day-to-day in the lab. Idexx is very slow to fire, even when employees don't do their job and are a problem for both coworkers and the company. Based on the company's budget, sometimes they are desperate to hire anyone, and sometimes they refuse to hire anyone. I work at a smaller regional lab, so our budget is tighter. No HR on site, not very helpful anyway. Direct managers (department and lab) are constantly coming and going, most of them not good managers. Mangers above that are even less helpful and care about our day-to-day even less. Definite favoritism and cliques. This job is best when you serve your own self interests. Depending on the manager most of the time it takes a long time to be promoted. You'll have to be patient and dedicated to get promoted enough to make it a lifelong career. Most people are only here for a few years. Our location is renting the space in an animal hospital office building, so it is small, and was only supposed to be temporary but to save money they are keeping us there so it can feel cramped. Our sample volume is ever-increasing, but since we are a smaller location they like to take shortcuts and workarounds for the same amount of people to do more work, and they take shortcuts with a lot of other things. The company spends so much money on machines and innovation but when it comes to the "front line workers" only pennies trickle down.

"Career Ladder" full of subjective categories intended to keep you from getting a promotion. Favoritism amongst some managers. Some conditions of promotions are seemingly optional for a few individuals Constantly labeled as "overstaffed" even if helping to cover other departments that are understaffed. AI is coming so currently only hiring temps and not getting enough temps in the door to keep stress levels manageable. Extremely dumb attendance policy that "resets" the fall off dates for former absences when you receive a certain number of points to a year from the date you get your verbal/written warning instead of a year from when you were absent. You will be pressured to meet numbers, as is expected, but sometimes the goal posts move. Some managers expect unreasonable and reckless speeds for some of their readers and technicians. Some managers will lie to you about the standards you need to meet.