Decent foundation with numerous opportunities for improvement
Pros
I worked for a small analytical laboratory that had recently been purchased by Intertek. I know the transition was very slow and painful for the previous 'owners' of the independent small laboratory as the lab dealt with new standards and expectations. The lab that I worked for offered a mediocre salary but exceptional benefits - ample PTO, periodic free lunches, holiday party, competitive health insurance, etc.
Cons
As I have moved on from this company, I realize that I learned a lot about 'what not to do' in an analytical laboratory from my time at this lab. 1. Actually be prepared for audits. The day/morning before an audit, we would scramble around a essentially 'sweep things under the rug' and hope that auditors wouldn't notice gaps in our processes. Instead, we should have had proper procedures in place from the beginning that everyone followed that would have made us better prepared for audits. This attitude and culture need to come from the top. There were days where I was honestly embarrassed at how poorly prepared we were. 2. Listen to your employees - even if they are 'just lab techs'. I grew pretty tired of not being taken seriously due to my age and position. Suggestions would be made to management that would sometimes literally be laughed at. I made a suggestions one time that was immediately tossed to the side only to have an auditor make the same suggestion a week later. I had to grin to myself while our manager tried to justify not making the change to the auditor while stumbling over their words. 3. Take safety seriously. I once cut myself on glass. Before I could get any assistance, it was demanded that I first take a drug test. It was hours before I was given a ride to the clinic after my screening cleared. Then management acted like it was such a chore to process injury paperwork. I didn't miss any work time. Over a year later (long after I had moved on) I was contacted by a 3rd party to ask if my 'injury' was resolved and if I was satisfied with the care I received. A little late... 4. Find a way to make HR/Corporate more accessible. Since we were a smaller satellite operation, our HR representative was over 1000 miles away. This made it nearly impossible to process any type of request or paperwork. If a position opened at our lab that had interest from multiple internal candidates, it would take ~8 months to go through the hiring process. A lot of top talent moved on to bigger and better jobs during this time period as the promise of an internal hire was dangled in front of us for 6 months.
