Givaudan Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Givaudan full-time for less than a year

Pros – Competitive salary wages & great benefit package, management promote work/life balance environment, proactive mentality rather than reactive, management have empathy with the employee, management treat you with respect beyond ethnic and race boundaries, among other great things.

Cons – No comments at this moment.

Advice to Senior Management – To create a career path program.

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

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

Pros – they pay above market and plenty of overtime if you want it

Cons – lack communications with employees, expose you to chemicals that can cause you health issues. Management is inconsiderate. Discrimination is rampant. no promotion process. Horrible raises. lack any training program. Unsafe work place. Don't play by the rules. Cheat on audits.

Advice to Senior Management – start over fire them all and get a real management staff

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Givaudan

Pros – The company is profitable year after year. This is beneficial to those at the top. Otherwise there is no incentive to working hard.

Cons – Employees had to work off the clock and not get paid in the summer.
Headcount is too low while employees are overworked.
No work/life balance.
Poor communication within the company.
Impotent HR controlled by upper management that allows people with power to wield it unchecked.
No formal training of new employees or uniform protocols. Leads to everyone doing everything differently.
Employees were required to come to work right after Hurricane Sandy on Oct 31 even though most live outside the city, public transportation was not operating and many did not have power at home.
There is a total lack of humanity and respect for employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Have HR professionals that focus on the employees' best interests and learn what employees' actual work loads are instead of eating and smoking all day.
Treat employees like human beings.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – The flavor industry is stable/growing. Givaudan is very good a creating new flavors. Good benefits and pay. There are opportunities to grow/expand career. It's a global company.

Cons – Givaudan is mostly focused on flavor creation. The difference between the creation side and the production side is night and day. Creation side, people are excited about what they do, and the company likes to showcase - there's clear passion and excitement. On the production side, things are disorganized, neglected and there's an obvious lack of excitement/passion. People just look forward to their next paycheck. The company does not invest in production and most of the needs are neglected. The leadership organization is constantly changing (longest running site director was 3 years...), and as a result, no clear direction exists (constantly changing). The culture is very much silo-ed, and not very much team work. Opposing viewpoints are strongly discouraged (people don't really get a chance to voice their concerns/opinions). Work/life balance is pretty poor (on the production side).

Advice to Senior Management – Need to create excitement/passion in what we do - not just on the flavor creation side, but also on the production side. People need to feel that what they are doing is contributing to the success of the company, and not viewed as second class to R&D and flavor creation. Value the experience and contribution of production - they're the ones meeting customer demand day in and day out.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Competitive Pay, fresh coffee readily available-- and that is about it!

Cons – The culrture is one of complacency and entitlement; manufacturing and operations are stuck in the 1950's and the safety issues are frightening. The revolving door of managers will make you dizzy.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in the people and invest in the plants. Failure to do so will bite you in the end. Key customers like Coke, Pepsi, Kraft, Unilever, and General Mills will go elsewhere (as supervisors, managers, and executives are) if you don't invest in people and processes in N. America.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Good paying job. Easy work. Friendly staff.

Cons – Production gets slow sometimes, and work becomes on call during those times.

Advice to Senior Management – The only complaint I ever had was when we didn't have any work. Try to keep production going by looking for more potential customers, maybe work with some of the smaller local businesses that may need products made by Givaudan instead of relying solely on orders from the big guys.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Good benefits, nice facilities, all levels of employees are treated as part of the company (and encouraged to conform), fair pay

Cons – Employees are passive aggressive, because dissidence is highly undesirable. This leaves opportunities wide open for predisposed bullying personalities to dominate entire isolated departments.

Advice to Senior Management – Get an actual HR department that honestly addresses employee concerns. Encourage employee input and allow for some disagreement. That is normal and healthy! Otherwise, Givaudan is a sound business, but that is a huge flaw.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – I can't think of any. I guess it is a job and you make a lot more money because of all of the OT

Cons – pay, hours, no advancement possibilities, Managers do not listen, A lot of yelling and very unprofessional work environment

Advice to Senior Management – If you want to keep your employees, you need to at least act as if you respect them and give them at least the illusion they are part of a team. Don't work the emloyees to death. Besides never having any time off, the cost of overtime is unbelievable.

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 Givaudan

Pros – a stable company with decent benefits but who knows any more with sap or should i say stop all production

Cons – if you are not one of the favorites you will not get promoted they say they are taking someone with more seniority or they will hire a temp.

Advice to Senior Management – get a decent management that wil listen to the people that live this seven days a week instead of pointing fingers

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Givaudan

Pros – Great people who are passionate about what they do and are some of the best in the business. Great mentoring and job opportunities. Fair compensation.

Cons – Company has grown a lot in the past few years and headcount has not kept up, so in some situations departments are spread thin.

Advice to Senior Management – Management team is doing a good job and the fiscal policies minimized impact of recent economic crisis on headcount. However, there were unrealistic expectations for gained efficiencies from the Quest acquisition and more resources are nowneeded in some areas to support continued growth.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend