Gilead Sciences Reviews

Pros

*job security due to company's current financial standing
*onsite cafes and gym
*free bagels once a week
*401K match

Cons

*pay is on the lower range for the bay area
*not much training/career development offered to the staff. company has money but is generally not willing to pay for training, especially if it's out of town training
*promotions are far and few (inconsistent), turn over is very high in clin ops
*the management team has been around for many years (10+) and so nearly their entire experience has been at Gilead and in most cases it has not matured as the company size has matured.
*micromanagement from top down
*very inflexible with alternate work schedule (i.e. telecommuting, etc)
*lean means completely understaffed

Advice to Senior Management

clin ops is broken; the constant turn over should not continue to go unnoticed!

Pros

Good Benefits, great pipeline, and Happy hours

Cons

Lack of trust in employees and no delegation of authority

Advice to Senior Management

Need to innovate, change and provide some clear guidance.

Pros

Benefits like any other company, Bagel Wednesday, Good health Insurance, Good 401k plan

Cons

Pay is definitely low compared to other companies in bay area.

Senior Management in the group lacks the basic fundamental skills of appreciating employees at the group level. They treat employees as slaves and take things way too personally. Seriously you have got to be kidding.

You would typically have a workload of 2 people in this group.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior Managements who do not know how to appreciate employee contribution should be let go.

Pros

good and stable company to work for

Cons

lean company. expects you to work very hard.

Pros

Company offered.good stock options and great benefits.

Cons

Systems are not in place and becomes very chaotic.

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

* The people I worked with
* Bagel Wednesdays
* Interesting projects
* Great gym facilities and classes
* Beautiful location

Cons

When I think of my time at Gilead I'm troubled by the fact that it has so many things going for it: great products, interesting and diverse pipeline, and they have amazing and talented staff and yet they cannot get out of their own way. The trouble is that they waste their talent. This is especially obvious in the Clinical Operations department. Due to numerous acquisitions this department grew exponentially without the support and ability to manage it - especially when it came to the managers. Many of the managers are incompetent when it comes to managing staff, and they should undeniably remain individual contributors. Trained, interested and trusting managers keep people. Micromanaging, lost and often-incorrect managers do not keep people. Unfortunately I found that there is no recourse to resolve issues with management as no measures were taken to improve the situation despite many, many, warning signs.

As other reviewers have noted, it's your time at Gilead, not your talents. If you're of the old brass then whatever you do is acceptable, but if you are new to the company you pretty much have to grin and bear the "Gilead way". It is unlike any other environment I have worked in and I wish that I had listened to other colleagues prior to joining the company and gone somewhere else instead.

Take heed, this is a company in massive flux and they do not know how to adapt at all, *especially* the top management in the Clinical Operations group.

Advice to Senior Management

There is a serious problem in the Clinical Operations department and you should seriously investigate the top managers in the group. Issues and problems come from the top down, and yes, that means certain people in particular have caused the massive strife and unhappiness in this particular group. The Clinical Operations group needs a massive overhaul and a lot more respect and appreciation shown to the staff.

Pros

Challenging programs where you will learn a lot.

Cons

Not enough human resources to appropriately deal with projects.

Pros

It's a job. Free bagels on Wednesdays.

Cons

Working here was nightmare. Things were very disorganized. It seemed like what Gilead wanted to do was the drive fear into its employees. I worked in a department where they were hiring and firing people every week. Most of the permanent people working there were stuck up who always thought they had the better of you. I was a contractor and there was no respect for contractors. I never worked for a company (being over 10 years in my field) where people were so rude, disrespectful, arrogant, and two faced. Thanks a lot Gilead!

For one, I had my manager snap on me a few times for something that was rather small. They like to bully people around there. The stress level was high due to a lack of communication, bully mentality of the managers and some co workers, and that workers in my department were being overloaded with work. It seemed a lot of my colleagues were just looking after themselves.

I feel that working for Gilead, you have to have no emotions, no say in what is right or wrong. I had come to feel powerless and disrespected working there and they had made sure that the contractors working there felt small and powerless in a large corporation that has billions of dollars. These are the companies that the Occupy movement are protesting against. It’s all about corporate greed, and their way or the highway.

Those of us who have worked in businesses like Gilead at various levels know there are no emotions, no compassion. No kindness, no love, no consideration. And I want to say to Gilead that this way of treating people is not right, but they will keep doing it anyways. Most of the people that work there only care for themselves and as long as the world has companies full of selfish, arrogant, and inconsiderate people, there will be more anger from people who oppose of this.

What Gilead has shown me is that they don’t really care about people who worked hard to deliver good service for them. There’s lot of anger, frustration, politics, in the air there. And in the end, this energy is transferred to the outside world. I want a better world for all of us, and sometimes we have to look at what’s going on from within to see what is being done wrong.

Advice to Senior Management

If you have a problem with a employee, take them aside and help them to be better. Be patient with them. Don’t tell them what they are doing wrong in front of many other people and their co workers. Treat people with respect. People are capable of improving if you guide them. I know this, because I am a teacher as my side job and was a manager at various companies. Yes, your job isn’t to teach. But you can show a lot more respect for what the employees are trying to do for the company. And loose the dictatorship mentality for your style of management. Trying to drive fear into people is not a good way to manage employees. All in all, I have no respect for this company any longer.

Pros

Great work place
Good Facilities
Great training programs - Personal and Professional
You will be in good hands depending on your Manager
Multi-Cuisine Cafeteria

Cons

No of years with the company counts rather than your expertise
No Visibility if your manager is not at his best
Heard some managers do micromanagement
No Work from Home option at all times

Advice to Senior Management

Try to recognize and retain talents within the organization...

Pros

- Great Manager
- Somewhat flexible hours
- Lovely campus
- competitive salary

Managers are very knowledgeable, and hands off
Really try to work with you

Cons

- cannot work from home too much

In general I love working at Gilead, and have learned alot from here.