A very good place to work that used to be great
Pros
GSK Consumer Healthcare is a very good place to work but that had historically been a truly great place to work. The people you work with are exceptional and the culture has been historically supportive, encouraging, positive, and focused on development. The company has a true sense of mission and a strong teamwork approach. Compensation and benefits are without question exceptional as is the work life balance. During recent savings initiatives the travel budget was cut substantially year on year for the past 5 years. While this might seem like a negative it was in fact a very large positive having shown that most business travel can be cut without negative impacts on performance. Judicious investments in video teleconferencing and collaboration tools more than made up for the travel reductions and sharply improved work life balance for all corporate travelers especially where US/Europe and US/Asia travel was concerned.
Cons
Recent changes to the corporate strategy, integration of the Novartis business/joint venture, and a strong move to downsize has undercut the culture and resources that made it a truly great place to work. Many highly experienced individuals elected to leave the company due to these changes. This, along with a very challenging computer system upgrade has made life more difficult for employees. Hopefully these just turn out to be growing pains. The real negative has become the strong growth of corporate politics between the former GSK and Novartis factions. Politicization and siloing has pushed decision making on even the most mundane of subjects to much too high of a level. This coupled with business performance objectives that are divorced from what is actually feasible have contributed to distress at manager level and below.