clinical research associate

clinical assistant

management associate

senior clinical research associate

project manager

Icon-PLC

 A typical day at work for a lab project manager is managing 17 studies and working 8am-7:30pm at minimum Monday to Friday. Project manager teams are a team of 2-4 with no coverage due to high workload. Face to Face travel is required with lack of compensation. 

Internal lab PM’s are undervalued and overworked with longer time for advancements, leading to high turnover with no difference between an associate vs senior project manager’s projects. Several level 1 and 2 project managers have significant more experience and learn more quickly, teaching senior PM’s and project management managers. A project managers success is based on their ability to learn on their own as management support is non existent.  

Directors lack industry experience and should be retrained and ideally replaced with better leadership. Project managers have no voice when it comes to new ideas for improvements or solutions in operational processes. 

ICON overall is a large organization with high potential for success, however, the severe lack of communication across several departments routinely leads to severe lab operational issues, significant sponsor impacts, and site dissatisfaction. 

As the company grows, directors should be reevaluated and listen to their project managers with suggestions on process gaps, rather than scolding or being condescending.

The company does not have any value on employee retention or any concerns for the work life balance of their employees. There are frequent waves of turnover in project management. 

Training processes are extremely lacking. Documents are not in one source and are very outdated processes. 

Directors as well as the department management should undergo mandatory retraining and be more open minded to construction criticism.

The worst part of the lab is IT support which cannot be depended on to resolve anything. Once you get a hold of them, it’s beyond their work hours and they will not help you.

The future of the company is not positive for US employees.

Several US employees have been leaving or considering leaving ICON on a routine basis as the company is really struggling with process gaps, especially as it grows buying out more companies. ICON has not been first choice CRO for the majority of work and will never be until processes are changed. 






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Started in one department which had great leadership and once the position I held was directly under their leader.  Even through rocky times of the company going public and then going back to private, the department I worked was overall a positive environment.  Transferred/Promoted to another department that was full of nothing but clicks and women who were all about being social.  Rewards were given to those who "kissed butt" and were friends of the manager.  Proved myself capable so I had 5 times the study load as others who were in "higher" positions.  Straw the broke the camels back was when I had a close member of my family die and I could only take the minimum number of days off.  My work load was so high I worked through holidays, weekends and I could not take a vacation.  When I left, I was shocked to discover that I had not been to the dentist in 2 years due to my work load.  Also discovered a co-worker who had few study assignments, had been on warning notice for not doing their job was finally fired.  Never knew of those issues but to be on warning for over 5 years is a bit excessive when we had others downsized who were much more capable.

Management is lacking.  They promote those within who are friends or recruit less experienced from outside and you must train your manager.  The current CEO and other Executive Officers of the company now get on a tangent to introduce a new system or some other new item, waste hundreds of thousands of dollars of company funds when the employees working on those projects warn them it will not work.  

Most of the smartest, best and most talented individuals have either left or were downsized.

Benefits are good if you can use them.  

No appreciation for employees since 2009.  Everyone is a "solid performer" in annual reviews of raises 2-4% increases.  No cost of living increases.  Currently hiring those who have no or little experience.

They have an employee there who has a felony embezzlement conviction but probably do not realize it due to the fact that no jail time was given and convicted after the employee was hired.  They need to keep better watch on the employee's activities outside work - ie criminal activities or convictions.

There is/was constant thievery of items in the office.  Cleaning crews were source of some but the bologna sandwich in the fridge is probably a higher up who feels they are entitled.

Clients see the difference in the way the company was running several years ago to now. 

I will not go into details as to what my position was, but I can say that when I started there, my training was very sub-par and ended up lasting entirely too long.  I was on mandatory overtime within the first few months (we were as a team) in order to work together on one specific project that was assigned to one person.  Since one person is assigned enough work for 3 people, they were falling behind, so all hands on deck.  I didn't really think much of it, I am a team player and when I have to help out, I don't question it....until I was told to neglect my own work and then I fell  behind, which left management questioning my productivity.  No matter how well you communicate, no matter how much you work or how hard you work, all that management cares about is the "metrics" which is essentially a measurement of the amount of work you do within the current 30-day period.  If your work falls beyond that, any work that you complete does not count towards your metrics since it is beyond the 30-days, therefore they have no record that you produced any work.  It's so frustrating.  I have also noticed that they are very choosy with the promotions and growth within the company.  In our department (document management) there is little to no growth.  I could go on and on and on but I could tell you that mandatory overtime is a real thing, overtime is expected and not really optional (although they want to pretend like it is) and this place is becoming a joke.  I will say though, you can insure your family for around $260 a month with an $800 deductible, free generic prescriptions and very low co-pays.  You also get 10 paid holidays and a generous amount of PTO (6.63 hours per pay period) and it starts accruing up on employment.  Great 401k as well.  They are all on paper too, by the way.  WAY behind other CRO's and low-paying in comparison too.

I would not recommend working here at all. managers don't know what to do or how the lab is run. the supervisors tell the employees to ignore the managers. i was lucky my manager was a nice. don't even think about getting a promotion. either someone with less experience gets promoted a head you because they are more well liked by the manager or they make excuses saying why they can't and then post a job listing for the position.

one person has been there for over a year and can't even do the basic requirements. 3 people have just upped and left the company. some of these people brag about how they finished a whole netflix season on the job or was able to do taxes. everyone that left have said that they were unhappy. accessioning has deteriorated in the past year based on the amount of mistakes i've seen. they are really understaffed and the manager out right refuses to help them in any way. the entire lab had a complete staff turn over in less than 4 years. everyone in the lab other then the supervisors has worked there less than 3 years. 

It doesn't help that some of the people will back stab you if they think they will get in trouble for something. some supervisors encourage an environment of antagonism towards other departments so it's next to impossible to get a coordinated effort to solve problems. people accuse others of wrongdoing all the time

not everyone is bad, but you always have to watch your back, even on vacation. ICON has a lot of problems to fix in the Portland location.I wish them good luck.

When I first started at ICON, I was thrilled to be in, what seemed like, a comfortable work environment with laid back management and good benefits. However, I soon found that there is so much internal politics. There is a huge culture of internal referrals, which mans that management and employees, and upper management are friends amongst themselves and they chose to move people up based on friendships and not on talent. The company has faced a huge round of lay offs in the past year and now when meetings are called, people are afraid of losing their jobs. 

Background: The company called together a global meeting and alerted us that by the end of the day we may no longer have a job. We held another afternoon meeting at which point those that were going to be laid off had left, and talked about moving forward. Whose to say the company won't do that again? 

Another huge downside is that because of lay offs and the company not being in stellar standing, there have been limited promotions and pathetic incremental increases (we're talking 0% to 3% here). Long term, this is not a company worth working for because moving up is difficult through all the politics, and even incremental increases and bonsuses are just pathetic. 

On another note, the benefits are good. Health coverage is solid, and vacation time is more than most US companies, with decent maternity leave and sick time. 

Overall, I do not recommend this company.

When I first interviewed the first and ONLY true question I was asked was if I smoke nicotine. My interview was unorganized and I felt as if I was already hired during the first over the phone screening. When I began working there I noticed a lack organization. I was thrown into computer training for about a month or two before I really began being taught how to do my job. I was thrown into my job with such a lack of knowledge and proper training. I was constantly under pressure to complete methods that I had very little understanding of. Thankfully the biomarkers team was friendly to begin with, but later became a status quo to slander other groups, supervisors, and individuals just trying to do their job. If you want to belong to a culture where you have to fight to be on a social pyramid, fight to be taught how to do your job, or fight to be paid decently for what was asked of you this is the job for you. oh might I add if you want to be constantly told how much money you are waisting with failed methods and be blamed for a lack of comprehension( for a multi billion dollar company that spans across the world) this is not the job for you.  Some individuals made the work environment very enjoyable especially with their kindness, understanding, and helpfulness. These individuals consisted of the downstairs lab and many individuals on the LCMS team.  

I work in the General Laboratory as an MLT and have worked here for 7 years. I entered with 10 year experience. I find the work interesting, challenging, and high standard for the industry. I cannot rate other departments within the company, but the Laboratory has a good upper management team who demands and recognizes quality work. Middle management has a high turnover rate as they need to hire task specific personnel to remove certain tasks for the department managers. Technical staff is strong when compared to other reference labs or hospital labs I have work in. Staff is also friendly as is the entire company overall. The Lab field in general  is entering a crisis due to retirement and less students entering the 4yr MLT programs. Salary has been adjusted and is one of the highest on LI for entry level NYS Licensed MLT. Raises and bonus have been annual since I have been here. Some departments staff Monday thru Friday, some staff Tuesday thru Saturday. Company is closed on major holidays with pay. Negative is lack of staffing in both the sample processing area and Lab area. Positions that open up are hard to fill, which is a problem in the lab industry in general.
ICON has company celebration days which are fun and lead to stronger interdepartmental relationships. Overall I am very happy in my role in the laboratory and enjoy my working relationship with my staff team as well as my management team.

As an almost 20 year employee of ICON, I can say that it is one of the most toxic environments I've had to endure. It wasn't always like this, the culture was more positive and your colleagues were friendly. It was truly "One ICON" like they always love to tout in HR. However, 7 to 8 years ago the culture started to take a downturn. Bullies are promoted and congratulated for meeting timelines no matter how terrible they treat their colleagues and how many rules and SOPs they break. Executive management allows this and punishes the service areas who give warnings against rushing and breaking controls. Work has to meet timelines regardless of the quality, and regardless of how many hours of rework you will need to do to fix the mistakes you make rushing in the first place. Resourcing needs are ignored entirely, and managers are encouraged to overwork their people and ignore their quality of life issues. It is sad to have to leave a company that I have put so much work into, but it is not the same place anymore. Executive management is full of accountants, and no one with healthcare background. They only care about metrics and revenue, not about their employees nor their clients.

PRA was a pretty OK place to work.  Not horrible, not amazing.  It was pretty average in terms of all attributes by which employees judge these companies.

I began as an application admin and developer, and quickly learned more in six months on the job than I had in four years in college.  After the first year, I'd accumulated enough corporate knowledge to realize the benefit and value in such understanding of how companies work, and what their domain of services may be.

Advancement was very fairly granted for effort and results.  Within a few years, I'd been promoted once and granted total salary increases of nearly 30% because I worked hard and bore fruit.  By the time I left, I'd doubled my starting salary and achieved a level of reputation such that people really appreciated my work and service.  Since everything I was given was in proportion to what I'd earned, I believe PRA to be a fair and equitable place of business for which to work.

The most enjoyable part of the job was interacting with the wide variety of people that work there -- many different fun and interesting personalities to engage with.  The most difficult part was how challenging some of the technical problems were.  But that was also great fun for me!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Clinical research associate 20 salaries reported	$94,616 per year
Clinical assistant 8 salaries reported	$21.25 per hour
Management associate 3 salaries reported	$68,193 per year
Senior clinical research associate 6 salaries reported	$128,500 per year
Project manager 5 salaries reported	$133,200 per year

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