Toxic - Lead Principal Scientist Broughton Employee Review

2.0
22 Aug 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Variety of instrumentation - good to learn new analytical techniques (if you’re in the right department - otherwise you’ll get pigeon holed with minimal opportunities).

Cons

Toxic culture. Inter-departmental attitude issues. Many incompetent individuals lording themselves above others (power tripping). Unsupportive management who constantly try to undermine people from other departments. Causes rifts between departments and unnecessary stress to hard working individuals. Priorities are warped - look after your staff and they will look after the clients. This is not the case; at Broughton they break the backs of their staff to desperately try and deliver on their over-promises to clients. More often than not, the promises aren’t delivered and leave sour tastes in client’s mouths. Clients are often lied to which adds pressure to internal staff to deliver impossible timelines (e.g. “we have a validated method for X” when in reality, no one has even thought about that method let alone started developing it). No matter how hard you work, no one knows how to say “thank you”. It truly was a toxic experience with a culture of hate and spiteful behaviour. Glad to be out of it. Took leaving to realise how much negativity I had been putting up with. To my point above about pigeon-holed staff - lab staff are blinkered to their one job and do not have the opportunity to learn the full process of the lab. Leads to mistakes as people are disengaged. Prevents smooth running as people are unaware of anything outside of the bubble of their role. Even when asking for more experience, people aren’t trusted and are led on until they eventually just leave. As for COVID-19 handling... no social distancing on site. Not even managers taking it seriously. In fact, senior managers on site have openly joked about it whilst getting far too close to staff. Massive shambles. In typical fashion, no one has listened to try and make things better.

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Broughton Response
5y
We are surprised at this review as it does not match the sentiments expressed in either the exit interview or in the email to a member of senior management sent at the time of resignation. We would like to address a number of the points made. Lying to clients - This is a very strong claim and one which is entirely unfounded and completely untrue. We make promises to our clients in order to meet their individual requirements and always work extremely diligently to deliver these. An open dialogue and trusted relationship is maintained with clients so they are aware of any problems we may encounter. COVID19 - a large proportion of the team spent the majority of the time this year working from home (including the reviewer) as part of our COVID19 risk management strategy. We have reduced our on-site headcount to the minimum and have implemented headcount limits and increased distancing in all rooms as part of an ongoing risk assessment. Unsupportive management – This directly contradicts the sentiments expressed in email and exit interview, both of which praised management and the company for the opportunities given. Over the last 3 years, we have grown significantly as a business. We have faced challenges along the way and converted these into opportunities. This is thanks to the amazing hard-working people at Broughton who have adapted to change and have seen the business grow from a team of 15 to a team of over 70. Our team, including the reviewer, have had and continue to have opportunities to develop within a rapidly growing business that are unlikely to be found in a more traditional organisation. Our culture at Broughton has always been to attract great people and to create the right environment for them to thrive. We accept the fact that we cannot please everyone.

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