laboratory analyst

director

senior lab analyst

maintenance technician

laboratory technician

Nelson Labs

Nelson Laboratories is an organization that held multiple types of medical device and pharmacopeia testing. Because of this nature, rigid standards are always observed. Guidelines from various scientific body from all around the world were always integrated into the work culture. In the department that I work with, we have held a standard higher than any other department because of the nature of our test. 

Our department tested for product sterility. We were not allowed to make any mistake because of this nature. The stress that every employee felt in that department causes most employees in that department to be physically sick. The managers remedied this by allowing employees to work with the different department every so often to lessen the mental and physical stress. Unfortunately, that program could've helped me if it was implemented when I started. I injured myself at work in 2012 and was unable to heal as appropriately as I needed because of the work demand. 

In my last few years with the company, I was trying to recover as much as I can to the point of using all my PTO and running out of FMLA hours. I left the company in March of 2018 in hopes to quickly recover from my injury.

The workplace was stressful enough that more than three individual successfully committed suicide in my ten-year tenure there. The one who failed attempted his suicide in the parking lot but was apprehended and was later let go from the company. In my department, a new employee would rather be transferred to another department as quickly as they can or get another job somewhere.

I proposed numerous amount of work culture changes to mitigate the stress and make the testing easier in our department. Some of my suggestions were integrated but the managers had to present the changes as if it was their own because I did not have a microbiology degree. In short, some managers will take advantage of an idea if it will boost their position and image. When I was asked to do a feasibility study on a project, I submitted a conclusion that the project would be expensive and will cost the company a lot of money. Unfortunately, the CFO did not take my advice and allowed the project anyway. After 12 months, the client did not honor their part of the contract and we were basically testing their product for free. Our company could've saved millions of dollars but instead, they rather listen to another microbiologist instead of a business major.

I loved working for Nelson in the beginning, my co-workers are awesome and we all work great together. Management is where the company needs help the most, especially with remote work going on with covid. Not every section is the same, but media section is seriously lacking strong leadership and professionalism. Many of their experienced employees have been leaving due to management and their lack of presence. They rely heavily on their leads to push the work they should be doing and their communication throughout the process is horrible! The main section lead for them lacks many common leadership qualities and the employees that work under him are in bad hands. The turnaround rate for this section as well as the morale for 2020 alone is at its worst and I really hope things can turn around. Once technicians from this area left, they’ve experienced better management, work conditions, and an overall greater understanding of what there is outside of the media department. Media has lost too many amazing technicians and great talent to the serious lack of good management. Communication goes the longest way to better a person, team, and section - yet, our leaders are failing us constantly. The employees literally work their butts off to maintain the department and to keep the labs running. Yet, there is no recognition for them - only the management....who don’t even have the decency to respond to emails or communicate clearly with their teams in a timely manner. The employees often feel defeated, but remain upbeat and keep pushing. Media section all together just needs some help from way higher up and can use some serious TLC. 

Middle management can be good for the most part depending on where you are. They’ll try their best to make it a good experience for you as much as they can. However, they aren’t in charge of deciding your compensation and can’t do anything about your benefits. That’s out of their hands, and that’s what most people are upset about. In addition, they are running skeleton crews on about every single team with a team of floaters who assist only if you’re the busiest section in the company. Managers are overworked and don’t have time to actually help the people they’re assigned to watch over. Every single process has become extremely involved and difficult and requires 5-10 signoffs before it can be completed which means nothing gets done anymore, but upper management is always complaining that productivity is down. I will say pay is “standard” for the industry if they actually kept you to your job description, but it’s not when you factor in that everybody is doing 3 jobs instead of their 1. Analyst pay is low, but fine since you probably shouldn’t remain an analyst for long anyway. But each step of the ladder you climb that discrepancy between what you are paid vs what you should be paid gets larger. So just don’t ever move to management. The amount of work they expect vs what you get paid is not worth it. Might as well go to Panda Express or another fast food joint to be a manager. 

A typical day involved managing a high workload with evolving priorities and expectations. The role provided exposure to a range of processes and cross-functional collaboration, which helped build adaptability and operational awareness.

At the team level, there were supportive colleagues who contributed to a collaborative environment. However, there were instances where management and leadership priorities did not appear fully aligned with the needs of employees responsible for day-to-day operations.

Workplace culture could feel high-pressure at times, with dynamics that made interactions feel more cautious than collaborative. This, combined with workload expectations, could impact overall morale and day-to-day experience.

The most challenging part of the role was balancing workload demands with limited support and resources. The most enjoyable part was working alongside peers who were knowledgeable, supportive, and committed to their work.




This is my first job out of college and I have worked with a few departments here. Every department has its own culture. When I was hired there was a heavy emphasis on making sure the department I was in was a good fit and met business need. Has been undergoing a lot of changes in management structure since the CEO changed last fall and the company went public. There has been a lot of turn over lately and the overall morale and enjoyment working of the company has been on decline. Department management works with you to help you achieve personal development goals, though I have found getting promoted to be difficult. Due to the nature of this industry and how regulated you should expect about 50% of your time doing the actual testing, 40% of the time completing the paperwork for the testing, and 10% completing regular trainings. I have found the benefits here better than most I have seen offered elsewhere, and decent starting wages, but merit increases in wages are poor. You can try to do a lot of extra things to help yourself to get higher annual evaluation scores, but my experience it doesn't help a whole lot.

The work itself was repetitive and mind-numbing. It's the same thing every day, all day. They call you a "lab analyst" but you only collect data, you never analyze it. They led me to believe that they would be flexible with my hours (I was a full-time student at the time) but ultimately I quit because this was a lie. They do not offer part-time employment so you are forced to work 40 hrs/week. If you do not meet the time requirement, you have to use PTO to make up the hours. This is typical, but I spent at least an hour at the end of every shift doing nothing because I had finished all of my tasks early but I could not go home without being penalized. I guess they'd rather pay you to do nothing than let you go a little early. They were unsympathetic when I requested that they allow me to work part time. I decided to quit because they were forcing everyone on my team to work an extra shift to catch up, but I was not trained on anything that they needed to catch up on so I refused because even if I had the time to put in an extra shift, there was no need for me to do so. They threw me a going away party which I thought was interesting since they were so crunched for time.

Good company, not bad benefits and a pretty good atmosphere overall. 

Where they lack, is in promoting good employees. The group I worked in had a high turnover rate. In a group of 20-25 people including management, I saw 15 either fired or quit to go somewhere else. Only one person moved to a same level position in another group; there wasn't one promotion. This was in the 1.5 years I was employed there. Morale was terrible. 

They hire people with degrees for low level positions while some supervisors and managers don't have one. 

They tell you after 6 months in your hired on position, you can move around the company, yet when you apply for other positions or have a drive to move up, they see it as a negative thing. I saw some people in the company move positions at least 3 times while I was there, not because they themselves had worked there a long time, but because they had other family members who worked there.

Management sees lower level employees as "not hard to replace" (word for word quote there), or expendable, and it shows.

When I first started here thing were semi-ok. Pay was low but we were relatively fully staffed and given the resources needed to get the job we needed done. Management shifted, we got a new president and he is very quickly killing anything good about this location. They've downsized positions so that all the jobs that used to take 2 people are expected to be done by 1. And if you say it's too much and you can't do it all, you could get let go. Pay has gone up some, but never enough to account for inflation or the actual market need for people. We're even about to run out of toilet paper because they haven't paid their bill for it, but upper management and the senior team doesn't want to do anything about it because they don't care even a tiny bit about our work environment. They're also being ridiculous about sick policy. Only 5 days a year, but if you are even having allergies, you need to stay home until symptoms are gone for a full 24 hours. So if you fall ill you will immediately blow through your sick time as well as a good chunk of vacation time. 

It is exhausting to be at work not doing anything. I don't mean in a "my work isn't fulfilling" type of way. I mean, "I'm just sitting here because I have an hourly requirement that I haven't met, but I already finished all my work." 

When there is work, it's repetitive and fairly easy. That's not for everyone. Some would call it "mind numbing." They're very understanding of that. Our department allowed headphones so you could listen to whatever you wanted while working.

But if there is no work to do, if you've finished all your testing, wiped down every counter, cleaned everything there is to clean, finished all your training tasks and reading... you still have to make 40 hours for the week. 
They don't do part time. You only get so much PTO and holiday/sick pay.

There are a lot of departments. Theoretically, you could get transferred to another department where there is work to be done. I waited months for that to happen. It never did. Other people in my department got transferred instead. New people got hired into my department, reducing the total work load even further.

Good luck! :)

The culture is very conservative, top down, and not welcoming. Context for work assignments is minimal. Managers and executives assume that on the job training is being dobe well, but everyone is too busy to talk about much of anything. Vaccinations against COVID-19 are not required. Office space is minimal, open, and shared, and often times is quite noisy. The display screens at docking stations are small and old. IT  networks occasionally fail. Managers lack skills for dealing with younger generations in the workforce, and the culture is fighting (rather than embracing) remote work and proper communication skills to empathize and collaborate. Training is focused on compliance with lab standards, but management ( and executives) would benefit from training on supervising remote workforce, diversity and inclusion, and preventing harrassment and hostile work environment.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Laboratory analyst 5 salaries reported	$20.40 per hour
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Senior lab analyst 3 salaries reported	$24.50 per hour
Maintenance technician 2 salaries reported	$24.65 per hour
Laboratory technician 1 salary reported	$17.00 per hour

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