Abbott Labs Reviews in Santa Clara, CA

Pros

Great management team, great people,

Cons

politics between department, communication between mid level management from different department needs improvement

Advice to Senior Management

Don't just look at the numbers and bars on the presentation slide prepared by a bunch of MBAs, understand the problem from a more techanical perspective is the key to continuous improvement

Pros

Stable job and good co-workers

Cons

Middle managers do not support their staff. They just take care of themselves. Inner circle gets excellent compensations with stock options and bonus.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of incompetent directors and managers who stifle the company.

Pros

You can feel your impact on improving / saving people's lives.
Vacation, 401k, Pension are all great benefits.
Works hours that allow work life balance.

Cons

Fairly difficult for internal career moves.
Brand name recognition not as prominent as some other pharmaceutical / health care companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Encouraging internal career moves may increase employee engagement, so that employees are always learning something new and interesting. This may increase employee retention.

Pros

good work-life balance. flexible work schedule. don't have to do very much. most people don't get in until 9 and leave at 5. the gym is really nice.

Cons

people are conceited and arrogant

Advice to Senior Management

Give respect to your employees. Don't check your blackberries when they are giving presentations.

Pros

Abbott is a solid company, with a diverse product line and pipeline. The company promotes movement within departments, which is good if you want to try something new every few years. Work/Life balance is important to management, and efforts are made to provide employees with flexibility to telecommute and/or modify work hours based on desired schedule.

The retirement compensation is fantastic, with a 401k 2% contribution/5% company match AND pension, it's really unheard of these days.

Cons

Abbott's base salaries are a tad on the low side compared to other big pharma/device companies.

Medical coverage is not the greatest, with the best plan costing ~$300/mo for family, and only covering 80% of costs. Even labor/delivery and hospitalizis only covered at 80%. This can really add up.

Advice to Senior Management

There is a demand for better insurance options.

Pros

They pay you, albeit below industry average.

Cons

Management is incompetent and unknowledgable about their position. The trend is to hide stuff from FDA during audits, not to actually do things appropriately the first time so that FDA has nothing to find. Quality is seen as an annoying hindrance that needs to be circumvented. The only way to advance is to suck up to the right people. It's very much an "old boys" network. New products are not being researched or designed.

The Office of Ethics and Compliance is known as the "Abbott Police" because of how often they interrogate people. People constantly feel like they're being watched and can't say anything to anyone about anything because the "Abbott Police" will come after them. During investigations, you are informed you can't speak to anyone about anything, you are told you can't take notes about anything said by the investigators, and if you do take notes, you must destroy them. People are investigated on a regular basis and when an investigation occurs, everyone in a department is brought in and interrogated. There have been instances where Abbott employees have made up false accusations (everything from fraud to harassment) in order to get rid of co-workers. It's a guilty-until-proven-innocent investigations where the investigators are co-workers at corporate headquarters in Chicago. They are not trained investigators. They could be people who hold the same job as you and who you have interracted with on previous occassions related to actual job related matters, not an investigation. The general approach by employees is becoming such that they quit as soon as they are informed they are under investigation. Many employees are currently looking for employment elsewhere rather than remaining in such a hostile work environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Start doing your job, respect employees, become competent, learn to communicate, get rid of the hostile work environment, get rid of the "Abbott Police"

Pros

Big company with broad product lines. Easy to stay forever by keeping a low profile and warm, fuzzy relationships.

Cons

Lack of patient focus in the medical device area. Very poor interactions and synergies with different units within the company. Has lost its past reputation as a strong scientific innovator. No trust of people, and job security is based on "sucking up" rather than individual contributor performance. Senior management are the same people who just get shuffled around from position to position. Marketing people continuously changing, as they come to realize that most products have poor design and service. The design engineering strengths left with the departed. Too much focus on regulatory compliance, without consideration of doing the right thing for health care.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on the products, not your own income and job security.

Pros

Stable job since it is an established medical device company

Cons

Working in IT in a NON-IT organization does not apy you well. You cannot make decisions since some other business unit is funding your project and they do not treat IT with respect

Advice to Senior Management

Need to focus more on people

Pros

If someone likes working for medical device company, Abbott Vascular can be the right place.

Cons

I don't recommend working there as someone in charge of Automation & Equipment

Advice to Senior Management

Improve communication with employees
Consolidate your equipment development in one department
Pay attention to automating processes/equipment. Chinese industry is going to be overcome this sector as well.