Novartis reviews

4.0

80% would recommend to a friend

(9,043 total reviews)
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Vas Narasimhan

86% approve of CEO

69% positive business outlook

Novartis has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 9,043 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Novartis employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

9K reviews
1.0
Apr 21, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salary is higher than other companies

Cons

Favoritism is rampant and only certain individuals get promoted if the managers have them in their good books / no room for any real growth / disparity in shifts in terms of staff available / insufficient training provided but initially was promised

2.0
May 30, 2019

Toxic, grueling work environment in Cambridge

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

great place to learn, but not to grow. Good perks.

Cons

Limited growth opportunities for non-PhDs. Weird cultural limits to who you could interact with beyond the scope of your position. Toxic atmosphere with no real tangible direction. Everyone looks miserable and unhappy. Most days people were rude and unprofessional. HR and management doesn't deal with poor/toxic performers in a timely manner. So many sexist comments and favoritism, and when brought to anyone's attention it was gaslit like crazy. Calibration was completely nonsensical even within the same departments. Even if you do well, you still question your worth and your place. Very academic-like environment rather than a corporate one.

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Novartis Response
7y
Thank you for your comment. We are sorry to hear of your experience and take all comments of discrimination seriously and as such have passed this information to the Novartis SpeakUp Office (formerly the Business Practices Office (BPO)). We recommend you also contact our SpeakUp Office directly by email at bpo@novartis.com if you have any additional information to share. Novartis strives to create a safe and fair environment for all its associates and thank you in advance for sharing any additional information with us.
4.0
May 9, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Top-notch employees. Innovative and cutting-edge technologies and resources. Highly collaborative, multidisciplinary, team-based drug discovery research. Excellent departmental and higher level management. New CEO and head of NIBR are focused not only on innovative and transformative medicines but also on creating a positive, employee-centric culture.

Cons

Working at Novartis was my first job after my post doc. The department I joined emphasized project leadership For new PhD-level hires, a tremendous growth opportunity in the right context, but was not provided a seasoned mentor (or any mentor) to help develop and implement the incredibly complex process of pre-clinical drug discovery. I felt alone and overwhelmed by the task and expectations, and was assigned a team without my input and without consent or volunteering by the team members. The breadth of experience on the team was excellent (medicinal chemist, cell biologist, in vivo pharmacologist, translational medicine expert, and high-throughput screening expert), but because they were strictly assigned, oftentimes the scientists had little-to-no inherent interest in helping with my “exploratory project”. Thrown in the middle of the ocean without being taught how to swim... Not great! Importantly, this was a departmental initiative and not a global one. Just illustrates what I imagine is common in large corporations; that the employee experience is wholly dependent on the department, the individual unit you’re a part of, and your direct manager. part of a large company, setting your own ideas into motion

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Novartis Response
7y
Thank you for your comment. We are sorry to hear of your experience and take all comments of abuse, bullying or harassment seriously and as such have passed this information to the Novartis SpeakUp Office (formerly the Business Practices Office (BPO)). We recommend you also contact our SpeakUp Office directly by email at bpo@novartis.com if you have any additional information to share. Novartis strives to create a safe and fair environment for all its associates and thank you in advance for sharing any additional information with us.
Viewing 19 - 21 of 9,043 Reviews

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