Beckman Coulter Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Since being acquired by Danaher Corporation, Beckman Coulter has enjoyed a more disciplined and predictable business structure that makes measurable deliverables more clear. This creates an environment where we understand the path to success and the focal points. We know we are contributing to important needs in the industries we serve and we know as a business that we are structured to meet those needs.

Cons – Disciplined measurement of effort produces great insight and helps secure success, but also is not easy. The culture at Beckman Coulter is very focused on the Danaher Business System and for those who are not accustomed to rigorous data-driven decision making might be put off by the intensity of focus. Winning (as a company) in this competitive environment isn't easy for anyone, but it is possible.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep on us to hone in our measurement skills and discipline. You are doing a good job of treating us like adults and pushing us to own and grow our portions of the business.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good work and life balance

Cons – FDA regulations has required more paperwork than necessary to complete projects.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – This company has great benefits, although they have declined somewhat in the last 3 or 4 years.. HQ in Brea has a free on-site gym for employees. The facilities are bright and clean. Although you may hear employees complaining about low salaries, the salaries are actually very good and higher than many in the medical device industry. Now that the company has been purchased by Danaher, the potential for new product development is looking better than it has for the last decade.

Cons – Overloading employees. The last decade has been all about increasing share holder value by eliminating costs - by force reduction, space reduction, benefits reduction, R&D investment reduction, capital expenditure reduction - nothing that others in the industry are not doing but, the cuts have been so severe that R&D came to a halt with most of the experienced workforce being let go or leaving as the workloads and lack of resources to get the job done became too much. Very high stress levels and low moral developed and have been sustained. Continuous leadership changes, restructuring, and poorly implemented process changes have left people confused about who is responsible for which things and how the work needs to be performed and documented. Attempts to use manufacturing style metrics for KPIs in engineering departments is not working. The amount of training is stifling and is performed more to meet requirements than to provide meaningful training for employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Use the Danaher R&D money to grow and maintain local talent as you develop new product and technologies ... that is a big part of what Beckman (and Coulter) was built on. Buying technology is fast but does not support the long-term health of the company. The employees that you have do care tremendously about the future of the company, the product, and, most importantly, about the customer.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Work environment is very good

Cons – Not much room for progress

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Beckman Coulter full-time

Pros – A lot of opportunity at this company

Cons – Challenging at times but satisfying

Advice to Senior Management – Good work with new initiatives

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Company has potential and plenty of room for improvement.

Cons – Upper Management and some Middle Management do not truly regard employees with respect they say things that may think they respect you but their actions never reflect what they say. Open honest two-way communication does not occur between Management and employees. If you have a problem with a co-worker or manager just keep it to yourself. Trust me on this one... just nod and smile, do your work and collect your pay. If you don't expect much beyond a paycheck and experience for your resume you won't be disappointed.

Advice to Senior Management – No, they already know how bad it is for the employees. They need to institute team building amongst and between all groups and make that a priority, not just talk about doing it. Hopefully they will try to change the culture but I wouldn't count on it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – in a good market, they pay pretty good

Cons – lack of direction and leadership
Be ware of this company until they get new leadership

Advice to Senior Management – you need new Management, change

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – No Pros to mention, nothing special

Cons – Low Wages, Difficult HR, No communication, No recognition

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Beckman Coulter full-time

Pros – Good work environment. Fair amount of freedom makes for a comfortable work environment.
Number of interesting projects to work on with new technical hurdles to overcome all the time.

Cons – Lack of vision from management, though this has been slowly improving recently.
Too much focus on following methodologies without enough critical thinking.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on more concise and constrained targets. We should focus on creating features in products that will help to satisfy the 80% of our customers instead of adding complexity through esoteric features that few will ever use.

Working towards small focused and well defined goals will help increase moral and focus and quality of work. Too often are we chasing the big goal which may be years away which leads to loss of drive and passion for achieving the goal over time.

Having entry level positions in the engineering department required to be hired on as hourly and forcing them to punch a clock is not going to help draw in new talent.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Beckman Coulter full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Most of the colleagues are courteous and pleasant to work with. The turn around used to be low. I get along with my manager.

Cons – But now, the turn around is high especially since it has been bought by Danaher. We have much less benefits than before. There is a lot of bureaucracy.

Advice to Senior Management – Be less penny pincher. We no longer have expresso coffee because it costs too much...
There is no longer a choice for an HMO health insurance. The PPO is bad.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company