Alcon Reviews

Pros

Incredible benefits, people, and opportunities to advance

Cons

Outdated systems infrastructure, limited training and support, inefficiencies

Pros

Benefits are above the average

Cons

Senior Management does not have clear direction

Pros

Alcon has a great pay structure, and good benefits. Good management and a great product portfolio. Good work/life balance. Overall good company

Cons

The only problem is if you hit say 150% of plan, they raise your cap up so high it is impossible to hit it next year with market share and penetration.

Advice to Senior Management

They need to understand how to motivate people. Money is not the #1 motivator. Give people with graduate degrees chance to move up rather than people that play the office politic game.

Pros

They provide a good work environment with a competitive salary and benefits. In addition, the products you make will have a direct effect on the quality of life of the people who use it.

Cons

There's a lot of management overhead, and redundancy that could easily be eliminated in order to make it more efficient.

Pros

Everyone around was very helpful and would take time to help you complete tasks
Good Salary and a good place to start a career
Good benefits
Nice culture, nice weather, nice campus

Cons

The job was too boring and could work there for 10 years at the same position
Sometimes the work given was minor
Not very fun

Advice to Senior Management

I would try to make things more exciting and help the lower level staff
Also communication is key in success

Pros

good pay and beniefts and climate controlled work enviroment

Cons

not treated properly and not sure if u are going to have a job.

Advice to Senior Management

hire new management

Pros

Beautiful campus
Currently good medical plan, God knows when it will be changed as Novartis has acquired Alcon
Currently good retirement plan, God knows when it will be changed as Novartis has acquired Alcon

Cons

- Need to have 360 perfromance review. Poor leadership in Business Intelligence/Data Warehouse group. Managment needs to show how to motivate, trust and respect their own employees instead of hiring consultants in their line management from outside who don't have real industry experience and also inturn hire their friends.
- Look at the turn over rate of even contractors who come and go in a short period. Does anyone checks in HR the line manager and his tram is capable of hiring right contractor.
- Management should stop hiring line management who are their ponies and don't have their own say how to execute their functinal.
- Management has favorites who they promote. One thing is clear that RELATIONSHIP counts in the this company and group. (Have good relationship with your manager/director and abuse anyone in the organization.)

Advice to Senior Management

- Think what you were doing before the transition that makes Alcon as a good company. Whi it is droped from the list of best companies to work for, THINK?

Pros

The company has great benefits, onsite gym, onsite cafe, company store with Nestle products. The campus is truly a park.

Cons

The work is unexciting and utilizing technology from 12 years ago. We are still on IE 6 if you can believe that. Recent acquisition and layoffs have left those that remain employed with little confidence in future with the company and overworked as they inherit tasks left by those that were laid off.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your people to do the job you hired them to do. Alcon is very selective when hiring employees. Take that into account and empower your employees to make decisions for themselves.

Pros

Benefits are good which is the only thing you can say about this place

Cons

No moral compass in management.
Very cliquish and lots of backstabbing
Quality of management feedback is very poor. (I was told that another employee complained that I asked the same question to someone else. Did not matter that this employee was not clear in his answer. Another feedback was that I was staring at the computer for a long time... and I am in IT ;))
During the Novartis layoff, the managers took time off so that they didn't have to tell their employees...completely cowardly behavior.

Advice to Senior Management

Wish you guys would do a 360 on your first line managers. It would be eye opening.

Pros

Great pay and benefits. Pension plan is good as well as the cost of benefits. Everyone is committed to the product and the patient.

Cons

No true area of responsibility therefore no clear expectations for a supervisor. Managers continue to operate in their own silo. Promotions are just give to hand picked individuals. Plant manager does not hold managers accountable for poor output and yields.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop bringing in exceptional talent and not utilizing them to their fullest. Get more cross functional teams and attack the production problems with some outside the box thinking.