Rho reviews

Dont expect to have a life. They pitch this 8-10 days on the road for CRAs. Its really 8-10 days on site. So with travel you could be away from home for 20 days with travel tacked on each end. If you even have breathing space to finally be home and spend time with your family, if it falls short of those 8-10 days they make sure to tack on travel for you. They do resource planning based off of that, so don’t believe that there is any work life balance. They are vastly understaffed with for the CRA role so they make sure they squeeze you to the max. The two cant co-exist logically. Being in a role thats understaffed with a bunch of projects and a “work life balance”. Some Clinical team leads are the epitome of micromanagers and they breathe down your neck incessently. They care about the client not you work life balance. Healthcare package is atrocious if you dont live in NC. If you want to add a spouse who doesnt also work at Rho just know your healthcare cost will go from ~90 bucks to 435-535 dollars. They charge you 100 dollars to add a spouse if the have insurance provided by their own employer. The medical coverage doesnt cover a thing outside of NC. You’re paying so much out of pocket on the front and back end. The dental is basic so nothing worth noting there. If you are seeking a company where you can still have a life or be with your family as a CRA, this is not the company for you nor worth the average salary they pay. I have a friend at Syneos who has more time at home with more running projects that she’s on and one can barely catch time for themselves here. I’m not sure what the model is at Rho for work life balance but its all smoke and mirrors.

Rho was already making big culture changes before COVID. When the pandemic hit, they immediately laid off a lot of staff (like the first month we went virtual). They said they layoffs were for financial reasons, and I sort of believe that, but they went on to have some of their best profits the next few years so it's kind of hard to think it was purely financial. Based on who they laid off, it also looked less like financial hardship and more like an excuse to cut people who weren't part of their revamped culture and identity. What was this new identity? It seemed to be less about putting people first and more about turning a sizeable profit. The charm Rho had when I started was it's relatively small size compared to other CROs and the family feel. When I left, it was all about how much money could be made and how much we could grow. The irony is that we were almost always profitable and the company had nice profit-sharing bonuses most of the years I was there. But evidently they wanted to be making more profit. Don't get me wrong, I have no objections to a company trying to perform better and improve their bottom line, but it came at the cost of losing some really great employees and people who had worked at the company for a long time in really important roles. A number of really great people were cut during the layoffs, but a lot of long-timers left of their own choosing in the years that followed. I've talked to a lot of former Rho employees, and many of them left for the same reason I did; they saw the culture shift and decided to leave. Essentially, the company started to look more and more like the other CROs I've been at. There was no real reason to stay just for the so-called culture when I could make more money elsewhere with essentially equally great people and strong culture. I thought Rho was special when I first started working there. Then, they kind of became just like everyone else in the CRO industry. The only problem is they still acted like they were different and special, when they really weren't anymore.