Pros

Innovative environment, results driven, vast possibilities of personal growth

Cons

Disconnection between management and research
Pressure from non scientist

Advice to Senior Management

Spend more time with lower level employees and try to communicate your vision and plans.

Pros

good work life balance, good benefits, flexible work arrangements, overall stable steady place to work. Management communicates with employees often. Some diversity.

Cons

difficult to explore career potential, pay not good, advancement slow, work environment can be stressful, a lot of bureaucracy like most large companies, constant changes in management and structure, layoffs

Advice to Senior Management

listen to employees, be responsive to feedback, increase diversity, improve career opportunities, increase base salary, stop constantly tinkering with structure

Pros

benefits, compensation, work flexibility, and competent coworkers

Cons

cumbersome and overly complicated system hinder productivity.

Advice to Senior Management

simplify the internal system and processes can make this place trully shines!

Pros

Flexible work schedules
401K matching
Great pipeline of anticancer drugs

Cons

Difficult to keep abreast of so many internal policy and procedural changes
Management positions doled out based on favoritism and not true talent and experience
Difficult to advance on chosen career path without knowing the "right people"
Culture is built on 'every man for himself' and not teamwork
Management seems threatened by those they manage

Advice to Senior Management

Although Novartis desires the number one spot in the pharma industry, it will prove difficult with some of the current senior management, primarily due to the fact that true teamwork and entrepreneurship is not encouraged.

Pros

The compensation is excellent and the 401K match is very strong

Cons

Operational overlaps, beareaucratic, timlines are constantly shifted, accountability is lacking, talent is marginal

Advice to Senior Management

provide a more extensive review process in hiring, update systems to 2009, rely more on in-house talent rather than outsourcing, give unlimited personal time and management discretion, like other pharmaceutical companies, offer floating holidays, don't shut down over xmas break

Pros

Good benefits (free gym, on-site clinic, etc.)
Friendly environment
Overall compensation is decent
Pipeline looks good in the near future

Cons

New hire training is confusing and inefficient
Work-life balance is not as good as other pharmaceuticals
Research interest is not encouraged and supported enough

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership should offer more work-life balance and more importantly, enforce their implementation at the first-line manager level. Research interests should be supported more within the Biostatistics group.

Pros

During my early tenure I worked with some of the most talented and innovated people in the pharma industry. Most of them left or were forced out of the company by incompetent management and went on to achieve highly successful careers with other companies. Unfortunately, while there are still a number of good people with the company, the ethos of the company has declined and with management focus on emerging growth markets (LatAm and Asia), employee morale is lower than low.

Cons

Incompetent front line managers who resort to favoritism and bullying to achieve results; incompetent mid-level managers whose actions are driven by pleasing an even more incompetent senior management team; Incompetent and arrogant global leadership who, lacking insight or knowledge of local market dynamics, rely on terror tactics and ivory tower consultant types to run the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Over reliance on "worker productivity" cannot compensate for corporate strategy driven by hubris and greed. Stop running the company like a bank that makes drugs, and start running the company like an entity that saves lives and improves quality of life. In short....try living the corporate mission and not just promoting it. Heck, just try reading the mission statement for a change.

Pros

Compensation better than industry average, opportunities for promotion and international work.

Cons

Very political and hierarchical, not enough room for independent thinkers.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize and reward creative, out-of-the-box thinking.

Pros

This company will provide you with the tools neccessary to launch and continue a successfull pharmaceutical career. I would suggest this company to anyone looking to advance their career or start it off!

Cons

It is in fact a large corporation which means that it is sometimes difficult to stand out above the rest. With continued hard work and dedication your name will be heard and you can be identified as a contributer to the company as a whole,

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to strive as one of the top performing companies with amazing management.

Pros

Good salary, reasonable career opportunities. Novartis is a good place to work if you are very ambitious and do not care about your health and private life. The Novartis Campus Project is gigantic. So, Novartis is definitely a great place for you if you love to work in fancy buildings designed by the worlds most famous architects!

Cons

It is not really performance that counts, but how you are able to sell yourself, how you do your self-marketing.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more attention to your own health and your work-life balance!