Roche Reviews in Palo Alto, CA

Pros

A long history of a good work environment with good manager support and reasonable expectations and rewards.

Cons

Until recently the positions were stable and changes resulted in reassignment of personnel rather than downsizing. More recently company has taken downsizing as a standard practice which is more inline with other pharmaceutical companies.

Advice to Senior Management

The handling of the Roche Palo Alto site closure announcement a short time after a site meeting unrolling a new vision and more or less five year plan for the site left management with severely damaged credibility. The loss of stability and long term personnel has/will rob Roch of it's historic uniqueness and depth of employee devotion it once had at cost which cannot be calculated.

Pros

The campus was beautiful. Local Management was good. Training was encouraged. My department consisted of great co-workers who worked well in teams.

Cons

The headquarters in Basel were frustrating to work with. The North American headquarters in Nutley were frustrating to work with.

Advice to Senior Management

Palo Alto leadership was very good. The Advice to management at other sites would include better communication and more respect.

Pros

Roche Palo Alto had such a beautiful campus. Most importantly, the company had intelligent, hard working, and pleasant employees which made it so easy to come to work everyday. Roche offers careers across the U.S. and around the world for people with passion who are looking for great satisfaction and great reward from their work.

Cons

Management needed to communicate more efficiently and it was very unfortunate that with the site closure, a lot of employees were dissatisfied with the communications regarding the events leading up to the closure.

Advice to Senior Management

The employees are basically the engine of the company. A little more consideration would have been much appreciated and would've made the transition so much easier.

Pros

Great benefits (maternity leave, vacation, retirement plan) package. A good place to learn new skills, a lot of knowledge in R&D. Beautiful campus.

Cons

Unfair promotions (or luck there off), very low salary increase even to the best performers. Poor dissemination of important information from the top down. Very political in some departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Please share information -- you'll get more committed employees, who's decisions would be more educated. Share knowledge across sites -- there is so much lost with Palo Alto closing.

Pros

Great campus to work at. Gardens and trees are always maintained. Good perks such as cafeteria and fitness classes available. Collegues are friendly and willingly to help anyone when needed. The company encourages learning by offering seminars and classes to all employees. It's kind of a semi academic culture, where most everyone is well respected. Definitely not a cut throat company. Collegues will offer advice when needed.

Cons

Palo Alto site is closing. Company is losing plenty of talent due to their Genentech offer.

Advice to Senior Management

It's a pity Roche is giving up the Palo Alto campus site to move to south san francisco.

Pros

Roche is a global company with a great deal of diversity and a real cosmopolitan feel. The company consists of many acquisitions of smaller companies, and although the acquired companies would probably prefer to preserve their autonomy, Roche makes an effort to globalize the various components and look for synergies that make sense from a business perspective, as well as offer greater efficiency. Their benefits are great and there are many opportunities for advancement at the middle management level. The company is highly ethical and concerned about sustainability, as evidenced by their environmental programs and comprehensive sustainability reporting. They are also extremely supportive of education and personal development.

Cons

The biggest drawback is that they are closing this particular site in the next year! However, there are other opportunities that have been created at other sites around the world.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to take advantage of the management training that is offered by the company - most people aren't "born managers" and many find themselves managers by default because someone has left the company or been promoted. The training classes, combined with identifying a mentor, will be a huge benefit for new managers, as well as managers who need a "refrehser".

Pros

The people. I have found almost 100% of the people that I have contact with are great people. This includes those in other divisions and locations. The work enviornment is also easy to operate in. They try to boost morale as much as possible. They still offer a company pension,

Cons

Currently not knowing when our jobs will be ending. Until the purchase of Genentech is complete it is hard to throw yourself in work 100%. It has been a great run but we need to know when it is ending.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate as much as possibel and be honest. The local management is very open and honest in all communications. That does make it easier to wait for the lay off.

Pros

Compensation! It is a big company and has name recognition. Palo Alto has a really nice campus.

Cons

Unfair/unbalance workload (Depends on the group you are in). Do not have realistic timelines on projects. People are expected to work overtime all the time. At the same time, some other group has no timeline and layback. People get penalized for working hard while some people are getting free rides all the time.

Advice to Senior Management

Please listen to your people and be fair. Please work on morale. People are restless and they are staying for the compensation only. Performance review gets too complicated and calibration does not work well.

Pros

Functional management and colleagues are great. I have worked at Roche for several years and have nothing but respect for most of my scientific colleagues. Projects are varied and interesting - plenty of opportunity to do good science. Compensation is only average in comparison to other companies, but benefits are excellent. Work-life balance is good - lots of company support for employee activities and clubs, at least at the Palo Alto site. Palo Alto stands out locally as a "green" business - a matter of pride for many employees.

Cons

Top company management are good bankers, but not particularly at developing new drugs. Of late, frequent reorganizations have made it difficult to advance compounds in the development portfolio. Several compounds discovered in Palo Alto have been outlicensed and are in clinical trials for other companies, which is very frustrating. Organization is bureaucratic. Employee morale in Palo Alto is not good at the moment due to impending site closure.

Advice to Senior Management

Move as quickly as possible on merger with Genentech. Currently, you have chaos at three sites (Palo Alto, Nutley, and South San Francisco). The sooner this is resolved the better.

Pros

Great network of scientists who in general are dedicated. Diverse cultural background of employees and interests. Great to be in the Bay Area close to many biotech and technology firms. Many interesting scientific and clinical problems with fairly good resources to explore solutions. Employees are generally happy and non-toxic and there is general cooperation.

Cons

Has some long time employees that are in positions of power and not competent or innovative. Basel in particular is a very non-productive, slow, and bureaucratic in their approaches. Very poor mechanisms to deal with bad senior management. Conflict is kept hidden and many back-room deals and negotiations.

Advice to Senior Management

Identify and distinguish between the most productive employees and dead weight. Empower employees more and fund and reward more innovation.