Covidien Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Covidien full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Pays well after you have been there a while because they want to keep you there
Once you leave your health (blood pressure, sleep patterns and stress level) and work/life balance do go back to normal. In other words the damage it causes (except for your marriage from always working and being stressed out) can be reversed.

Cons – All work and no play at this company.
Will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on upgrading conference rooms for executives but we can't buy copy paper and pens at the site level.
No room for growth - they don't promote from within because they don't groom you for advancement.
Won't fill open slots because its a cost savings but continue to heap projects on already overloaded staff.
Moving medical devices out of country to low cost production sites to increase margins and know it lowers quality.
Every time something happens it's a HR witch hunt to find someone to blame at local levels instead of acknowledging that Executive leadership has done nothing but set company up for failure by not staffing appropriately and focusing too much on cost savings.
No loyalty to employees
HR is extremely anti employee, don't trust any of them...watch your back and what you say.
When market gets better expect everyone to start looking if they aren't already.
Doesn't matter what location or department you work for, the culture is the same everywhere because it starts at the top.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop cleaning house at the indian level and start where everything begins...with the chiefs...lord knows there are enough of them.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – 6% 401K match, employee stock purchase program, 3 weeks of vacation.

Cons – Zero opportunity for advancement, bonus payout is a joke, toxic finger-pointing culture, pay raises that do no keep up with inflation, certain members of senior management are unethical and incompetent. Overall this is a dead end job at a company that invests absolutely nothing in its employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Change current senior management at the Atlanta DC

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Covidien full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Medical devices is an interesting industry; compensation is good, strong financial performance; great products.

Cons – Toxic work environment where only certain highly-valued employees will advance; opinions of others are not valued or desired. If you don't fit "the mold" eventually you will be made to want to leave. People get ahead by making sure others look bad and other highly-political moves. The organizational dysfunction is the worst I have ever seen. Somehow out of this great products are born.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't take everything so seriously...life is too short to not have fun.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Chance to work through the ranks to become a valued profeaional. Good benefits with decent pay.

Cons – A ton of bureaucracy. Nothing can be done quickly and on time. This is on a plant level as well as corporate.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the peolple on the line when they tell you somthing. They are the ones with the most knowledge of the processes.

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

Former Employee – worked at Covidien full-time for less than a year

Pros – Everyone is helpful from management to hourly workers and even maintenance crew. Small community within the small community of Hobart, NY

Cons – A lot of red tapes to get simple things accomplished.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your supervisor and hourly workers for recommendations to process improvements.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Covidien full-time for more than a year

Pros – They have great 401K matching

Cons – The old Tyco "performance at any cost" ethic is largely still in place. The pressure to tell leadership what they want to hear rather than the truth was NEARLY insurmountable.

Advice to Senior Management – Read your own ethics training and act accordingly.

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

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

Pros – Historically the Boulder facility had been great. We launched a lot of new products, had a good flow of communication between departments, and made a lot of money. There are still some great engineers and marketers in the company.

Cons – There was recently a big layoff. While a lot of people who had been around for years and no longer contributed much were let go the management also took the chance to get rid of anyone who offered opinions differing from theirs. I saw some of my colleagues who, in internal departmental meetings, would proposed changes or different ideas than directors and VPs but go along with the VPs decision in front of the rest of the company get let go. It seemed really petty and now no one offers dissenting views. Creativity for the entire R&D organization has been put on notice.

Advice to Senior Management – If you want innovation then do not lay off R&D. If you want quality do not base bonuses on the number of recalls. If you want buy in try communicating instead of directing.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Covidien as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Good Place to get medical industeries experiance

Cons – Not adequate planning for new projects

Advice to Senior Management – Better Project planning for upcoming projects

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Covidien full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – -There are many intelligent mid to lower level workers at the St. Louis Plant and in R&D
-Benefits are average
-Pay is average but on the lower side compared to industry
-High barrier to entry due to closed controlled substance borders and long costly approval processes

Cons – -Poor strategy and management decisions have led to loss of talented employees
-Covidien's decision to spin-off pharma due to drag on financials, lack of viable/sustainable pipeline projects, short-lived patent protection with weak prospects to fill void
-Declining financials due to high costs and more innovative competitors
-Non-global and highly dependent on US market
-Company does not value diversity and is a rare haven for the typical young white male, however company is trying to mask this and have placed token women in VP positions
-Who you know, not what you know, is the key to advancement
-Very high turnover of upper-level management
-Lack of innovation and industry leadership, me-too company
-Unstable company

Advice to Senior Management – good luck as a stand-alone pharma company in a tough, struggling industry.

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 Covidien full-time for less than a year

Pros – Learn the fundamentals of the medical device industry.
Exciting, fast-paced.
Make decisions that matter and affect end-users.
Continuous learning.
Play a significant role in continuous improvement of processes, quality, safety and compliance. Long hours

Cons – Only potential con is long hours

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