Eli Lilly Reviews

I worked at Eli Lilly full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Salary was great going to behaviors sucks

Cons – Management was all talk glad they retired

Advice to Senior Management – Retire!

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

I have been working at Eli Lilly full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Decent career development for aggressive sales professional
Run your business as you see fit

Cons – Respect for people is true only if you fit in their plan.
Pipeline is all hot air. No new products
New products are weak. Washouts and measurement from placebo vs. baseline in trials.

Advice to Senior Management – You have a hard time determining who the truly talented are. You better find mid-level leadership to right this ship because it is SUBSTANTIALLY lacking in both sales and marketing.

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

I worked at Eli Lilly full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great Benefits, descent pay, good crews to work with.

Cons – Dont rock the boat, challenge authority in any way, they will fire you for it...forget the President's message to speak up-be bold- challenge the status-quo...it will just get you fired. Very slow upward mobility...forget work life balance...they will work you like a dog and think nothing of it...supervision sits on their hands and collects unlimited overtime while the trogs do the work.

Advice to Senior Management – Check your down lines- don't drink the kool-aid-don't believe what your being told by your middle managers..its all crap-they're getting paid well for the great hair cuts and nice clothes..but they are deceiving you. Do your own checking, if you have the courage to follow your own edict- Talk to the people actually "doing" the work and listen to them...they are the only ones who truly know the truth!!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Eli Lilly full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Great Infrastructures! Possibility for great discoveries!

Cons – Wall Street hataken over! Emphasis on the stock value, rather than sound BASIC SCIENCE.

Advice to Senior Management – Forget about Wall Street! Forget about making "EXISTING" drugs better or used for some different disease! Place scientists in their own world and let them dream!!!! Without pressure, or expectations!
SOUND BASIC SCIENCE will give you another "PROZAC".

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Eli Lilly full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Free car, very flexible work schedule, expense account

Cons – The whole industry (it's not just Lilly) is SHADY. Doctors can be bought, even if they don't really believe the drug you're asking them to write is really better. Lilly loves the term "create a need" meaning get people to take your drug even if they don't really need it. Ugh

Advice to Senior Management – Lead the way in being an ethical pharmaceutical company and don't require your sales people to LIE

I worked at Eli Lilly full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good pay when you can get it - sometimes merit increases don't happen
Annual Bonus - Very nice, but your rate is still determined by your management
Time off - Decent amount but not always allowed to take it.

Cons – Work you to death until you break then get rid of you
Outsourcing has made actual employees lazy
No true business knowledge left in hands of company employees
No regard for their employees health or well being
Can only advance if you are a pretty woman, non-american, or very good at politics

Advice to Senior Management – Stop outsourcing!!! It is bad enough you don't know how to run the company, but it is even worst that your employees don't know how to do their jobs.

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

I have been working at Eli Lilly full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The salaries and benefits are wonderful.

Cons – Eli Lilly's focus on diversity is almost exclusively aimed at minorities. Middle-aged people, not so much. Middle-aged women who are not beautiful? No career advancement possible.

Ever since they started the IT reallocation process, IT vision has been very inconsistent. On the one hand, the approach has understandably been to scrimp and save. One the other hand, let's buy Ipads as fast as we can, no business justification required. The capabilities teams can spend the dollars and produce invisible results. And where are those outsourcing results in dollars saved? (That last question applies also to R&D and mfg.)

The "rules" for career advancement are secret:
1. You must be in a global job to add value (i.e. get a promotion.) Even though we all work on global projects, even lead global projects; even though Lilly certainly is focused on growth throughout the world; you must SIT at corporate to get promoted.
2. You cannot leave a plant-site role for a global role, except for a promotion. Even though rule 1 applies, stay at those plant sites and slog it out.
3. Above all, get on the happy list. If you aren't that list, you are going nowhere, results be damned..

Women in IT, interested in technology, not in herding cats (contractors) ---do not plan on a career at Lilly. Check the "Architect" jobs and count the women, just about zero.

Stay away from Lilly IT, they don't deserve you. They will milk your time and expertise, and even with exemplary results, they will tell you repeatedly that you never did anything important enough for advancement. Don't give them that opportunity!

....end....

Advice to Senior Management – Treat women in technology fairly. Treat middle-aged employees as though they were young or minority. Prepare for discrimination lawsuits which are not originated by African Americans.

When a professional comes to HR with concerns like these, the managerial responses should not have to include, "Don't say anything", especially as helpful advice.

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

I worked at Eli Lilly

Pros – new midwest graduates wanting big company experience

Cons – Get ready to sink or swim on your own.

Advice to Senior Management – Have an objective reward and discipline system - hold bad performers accountable. Get rid of bad managers before they totally ruin a reputable company that Lilly once was.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Eli Lilly

Pros – Reasonably good pay for the area.
Reasonably stable employment.
Low cost of living especially if living outside of Indianapolis area.

Cons – Work - life balance is not as good as it used to be. The company no longer cares about or values their employees.
Be very afraid of speaking up (unless it is what management wants to hear) as it's the Lilly way or the Highway - a result of inbred management that has always been very arrogant.
High levels of experience mean little to managers. It's all about numbers (metrics) - kind of like General Motors and we have seen where it led them.

Advice to Senior Management – Get off of your thrones and get to know your operations and people!!!!!
Get rid of more layers of management and don't do it by making more managers or directors with no idea of what they are doing. They spend to much time on power point presentations and memorizing the latest buzz words and acronyms.
Abandon the useless performance management process - What a WASTE OF TIME !!!!!!!!
Change the bonus system so that all that are not under the BOD control are rewarded equally - as it was done several years ago.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Eli Lilly

Pros – Good salary and benefits, if you are not ambitious
Nice headquarters
Fosters team work
High quality of employees

Cons – Sinking ship (big patent expires with weak pipeline)
Lack of strong leadership
Very political
Too much time spent on unimportant activities, not much focus

Advice to Senior Management – Make a real restructuring. Get rid of a full layer of VPs. That way decisions will be made more quickly instead of moving from committee to committee.
For the BOD; bring an outsider for the CEO and CFO roles. This may bring better respective of what needs to be done. Senior management is too inbred

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend