Novartis reviews

4.0

80% would recommend to a friend

(9,041 total reviews)
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Vas Narasimhan

86% approve of CEO

70% positive business outlook

Novartis has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 9,041 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Novartis 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

9K reviews
1.0
Jun 16, 2019

Terrible environment at NTO

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits. Good people (that are rapidly leaving however), good pipeline and opportunities to get involved in many things.

Cons

Novartis Technical Operations (NTO), is not part of Novartis culturally. The inspiring and attractive messages from Vas, the company CEO, are well received and integrated in all leadership areas of the company except for the NTO leadership group. Over the last few years, this area of the company has seen a culture of fear, lack of respect, and superficial communication emerge throughout the organization. Masked behind a masquerade of fake global townhalls (where spontaneous questions and interventions have been carefully prepared to look good and engaged), forced pictures, and communications aimed at pretending that the organization is engaged and empowered, the real pulse of the organization is one of fear of speakup, not knowing if tomorrow our roles will be there anymore, blaming of errors or for not achieving unrealistic targets, and of heavy condescendence from the Head of NTO towards leaders and people behind closed doors. Most of the focus and discussions are on budget and reporting, and the HR systems are merely transactional with superficial people development plans and systems ( a lot of blah blah and nice pictures, but fear to ask and get involved from HR). This environment is slowly creating compliance issues and problems which people are afraid to speak about (no matter how “safe” the business practice office claims to be). How long will Vas and his team continue to close their eyes on this……? there are 28000 people in NTO that truly do not feel “un-bossed”!!!!

1.0
Jul 20, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I cannot list anything good

Cons

I was persecuted by this company for speaking my mind in 2007; I did not get any promotion until 2017 when I left the company even though I had all qualifications to be promoted; I filed a complaint with their Ethics Commission because cannot keep this quiet anymore and no answer was provided to me - I even provided the names of the people I want investigated; seems this Pharma thinks they are above the law - I will not hesitate to get a lawyer

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Novartis Response
5y
Thank you for your comment. We are sorry to hear of your experience and take all comments of discrimination seriously and as such have passed this information to the Novartis SpeakUp Office (formerly the Business Practices Office (BPO)). We recommend you also contact our SpeakUp Office directly via http://www.speakupnovartis.ethicspoint.com/ if you have any additional information to share. Novartis strives to create a safe and fair environment for all its associates and thank you in advance for sharing any additional information with us.
2.0
Oct 1, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Structure , sop, abundance of experience

Cons

Novartis was the first company I worked at post grad. I’ve since worked at 3 other companies and now hold a senior director title. Reflecting back, this was not the best place to work. My manager was a large part to blame, but the company fostered a culture that condoned her personality type and behavior. She was a micromanager to the max, had no respect for peoples time , was inefficient, and a very poor leader. She also exhibited harassment behavior strangely towards male colleagues. She had been at Novartis for close to 20 years. Her behavior was not addressed once in my two years employed there. There was a constant trend of her direct reports quitting because of her. On my exit interview I wanted to give feedback but HR held the interview in the lobby of the building…who can feel comfortable speaking up? The clinical trial management organization felt like high school. It was all about optics and initiatives and who can be the “loudest” about their work. Overall the culture at Novartis was awful.

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