* Politics come into play with promotions
* Promotions are slow across the board for the most part, unless management really likes you or is scared of losing you
* Pay raises are pathetic - essentially pegged to inflation
* Generally speaking, across the board, everyone is about one level too low relative to their job responsibilities and demands in reality: either being asked to work beyond their capacity or underpromoted/compensated - some are arguably two levels below!
* Management happy to increase your responsibilities immensely while not promoting or compensating accordingly
* Management has blinders on and is only focused on the science - not noticing time bomb ticking with unhappy scientists and increasingly toxic culture
* Management sets absurd goals and timelines and expects team to actually meet them
* Middle management mostly poor: while their scientific caliber is appropriate, most are focused only on the success of the project and care little for their reports. They are very willing to burn through all goodwill and respect to move projects forward.
* Research Associates (Ph.D. or non-Ph.D.) not treated well. While their feedback is readily welcomed, it is never heeded, which is perhaps worse than not having feedback solicited.
* Key players neither treated appropriately nor compensated accordingly. Even across departments, most can tell who are key drivers, regardless of title. Job titles come into play more than they should.
* Related to previous point, key drivers do not receive appropriate public acknowledgement. Inconsistent standards in acknowledging people's efforts. Middle and upper management happy to acknowledge everything to team to the rest of company when key individuals drove the majority of work.
* COVID response was disorganized and outright pathetic. No support for vaccines. Went into SIP with county and region, then promptly returned to work in person within a month once it was clear projects would stall out. Despite enacting (poor) precautions for COVID limiting lab time, productivity was still expected to be comparable to pre-COVID, despite management's insistence otherwise. Colors were shown clearly then.
* Massive attrition problem largely related to the aforementioned points; have hemorrhaged over 15 people per year past two years
* Hiring problems leading to vastly understaffed and overworked teams, particularly in certain departments
* Hiring pipeline is questionable: some good hires, a few home runs, and some extremely questionable ones; little middle ground
* Pipeline is narrow and has currently only hit on CCR4