Charles River Laboratories Reviews

Pros

spacious facility, average benefits package, great people to work with, will hire new college graduates, good communication, relaxed atmosphere, good sense of teamwork

Cons

lots of changes in management structure - could never seem to get it right who should report to who (and some managers are appointed to supervise employees without knowing what their direct reports' jobs are), pay is on low side, my workload doubled while my coworker was on maternity leave and all i got out of it was having to work weekends all summer, vacation requests occasionally get denied for poor reasons, not much room for advacement, sometimes atmosphere can get too relaxed where people become unprofessional, HR has been known to give misinformation on benefits

Advice to Senior Management

offering some room for growth would do a lot for employee morale

Pros

It really depends on your management as to what the good qualities are - Flexibility is a plus, depending on your manager. The benefits and vacation are decent.

Cons

It can be difficult to get the job done, processes are not very well organized or set, which creates frustration and wasted time. Most of the management is old school and very set in their ways.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus and appreciate employees more. Be more open to new ideas. Everything is day-to-day with what seems like little recognition.

Pros

The facility is well kept and the location is good (an industrial area away from the downtown area). The facility is highly secured.

Cons

The hiring website has many flaws that make it very difficult to use. There are websites and email addresses that are not functional. Human Resources is unhelpful and inconsiderate to prospective employees. Unresponsive to emails and phone calls.

Pros

The benefits package is very nice. The training was outstanding, and you definitely learn a lot from the trainers, especially if you work with them. This is a great opportunity to learn some skills, and improve your skills. Think of this as AAA baseball before moving on to the majors.

Cons

The leadership needs to be re-evaluated. The people doing the work, and even the next level are very good. If you want

Advice to Senior Management

Once you get to the manager and senior manager level, things begin to fall apart. A helpful hint: Just because someone has worked in a position for a long time does not mean they will make an effective manager/supervisor.

Pros

Experience. Will hire out of college. Immediate supervisors are excellent.

Cons

Management has no respect for employees. View us as disposable and make sure we know it. Work gets in the way of personal life often. Rampant favoritism and most peoplearent comfortable taking concerns to hr on site. Often times nothing happens even if it's a repeated complaint by multiple people..

Advice to Senior Management

Leave and let someone better suited take over.

Pros

has very good vacation package (3 weeks) with the potential for 4 if you have 1 week roll over from the following year. A great amount of responsibility in this job is required even for new green employees. I have learned so much here in the 5 years i have worked here because management is so hands off.

Cons

No communication between upper management and the lab (in which is this extremely important since there is no Supervisor). Management is also out of touch with the lab and constantly sets high demands on them even with limited resources in a GMP world.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your workers they do know what they are talking about and are knowledgeable on what they do.

Pros

Interaction with animals and the latest in cleaning equipment concerning research labs. Cool team orientated work atmosphere.

Cons

Supervisors have very little concern for ground level employees. You come into contact with varied health risks, but pay is very meager despite this fact.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a backbone and listen to the concerns of employees and don't just focus on being concerned with your own job and promotions.

Pros

Charles River offers a competitive salary and great medical plan. Charles River offers an employees stock purchase plan. New hires start off with 3 weeks a year vacation.

Cons

Due to tough economic times the company is scaling back on its operations and employees. This is making it a very stresful time to be employed not knowing if you have a job day to day.

Advice to Senior Management

Management was always very fair and my best advicce is to try to comunnicate to the employees how the business is doing.

Pros

some parts of the company may provide opportunities for growth. Overall, not the place for scientists. A pharmaceutical company may be the preferred if your interest is in research.

Cons

the company does not value scientists. Low salaries and not so great prospects for upward movement. A CRO environment may not be ideal for conducting pure research.

Pros

Need Experience? - Come join and then get out. Like everybody does.

Cons

The dept excluding clinic are hell to work in. The Manager doesn't even allow you to play radio in these departments except Finance. The dept I worked at the Manager wasn't even able to make decisions on its own - the nego group was making it for him. And well it's a secret to anyone working there anyway.

Outstanding work is never appreciated and God forbid if you leave 5 second early - the check your card swipe and you would be called in the office for those 5 seconds and if you worked 2 hours extras?

Advice to Senior Management

Management is known to micro manage the employees. The stories were that every little email would get picked up by IT dept. The middle management doesn't know how to deal with employees - very bad treatment.