A highly Professional place, a few bad apples, decent management, room for advancement, appreciates& rewards hard work but lacks follow through
At first Thermo-Fisher appears to be an highly professional and top notch work place. With regularly renovated facilities and brand new tech, they've spared no expense. the company constantly has community and charity events to foster unity. safety is considered goal #1, they want you to stop and review every task you do before starting it, list all the hazards big and small and reduce any risk, every task, everyday, and every time, so while it may seem tedious everyone should intimately know the hazards of their work.
At first ergonomics seems to play a big role, with regulations in place to reduce strenuous work or actives, but its seems these regulations are swept aside consistently because some employees prefer certain tasks over others and refuse to do some jobs they consider beneath them, leaving the hard work to a handful of workers, while other employees are never even considered for the role, giving the impression of favoritism.
Management appreciates Hard work. While not perfect, Its pretty obvious they care for their work and reward workers who go above and beyond. Innovation, participation, responsibility, admission of mistakes, good communication and good co-operation, good safety practices are often ( but not always) rewarded with bonuses, praise, and commendations.
While the social environment is positive, some aspects of the day to day work life may affect your work, production, and attitude. 90% of the employees are warm and welcoming. Mo
Prosrewards/ bonuses and appreciation, panera Bread cafeteria, mostly good benefits. great co-workers, room for advancement, free coffee, stable company.
Consfavoritism, the hardest job is often forced on 1 person, breaks aren't easy to get, a few bad co-workers less than perfect health insur.
Thermo Fisher has literally no concern for the survival of its blue collar workers.
A Material Handler position at the Frederick Thermo Fisher distribution center is better than no job at all, but not by much. There are so many negative things to say about this operation I could start a daily blog and not cover it all in a year. This portion of my review focuses on management and hiring/promotion practices.
• Thermo Fisher hiring and promotion practices/Management:
o Thermo Fisher recruiters do not look at your experience analytically; if you apply for a Material Handler II position that’s what they’ll contact you about, even if you have the qualifications to be a supervisor. Managers are equally oblivious and are just looking to fill positions. You could have a Phd but it is irrelevant without warehouse experience; expect to make significantly less than you are worth, and expect to work under supervisors with less experience.
o Thermo Fisher supervisors have little interest in cultivating talent. If you have an aptitude in, or interest in improving, a certain skill you will be fully responsible for pursuing your own training (unless the company needs to fill a quota). But be warned, once you have been shown something on a single occasion you will be expected to take care of it in a pinch. And as always, regardless of how incomplete your training, you will be held responsible for any mistakes.
o New positions are not well publicized and are granted based on slots allocated, not on performance.
o When interviews for promotions take place, upper man
ProsBenefits, some hard working co-workers.
ConsNearly everything else (please see my long explanation above).
Good Industry Experience. Poor communication & direction from management/departments. Too much downtime.
I worked here as a contractor for about a year. Initially, my first manager told me the position was for me to perform some lab experiments in cell culturing and antigen purification. Instead, I was working on researching how to improve the current manufacturing processes and working for management. The responsibilities listed on the job description were not the same duties that I performed for this job. For the first three months, I was just learning as much as I can on my own with very little support; it's frustrating since most people were busy and there was no training and development for temps due to budgeting issues. There wasn't enough for me to do in terms of the lab work; it was mainly more office work than wet lab work. I was considering leaving about three months into the job due to little or lack of engagement from the employees and team, but management decides to change the direction of the team to do validation work.
Once I started working in validation, my first manager left and another manager took over the team. The second manager had better direction and the team seemed to get their projects done on time. I learned to design and develop validation protocols with some support from the team. Once the protocols were drafted, I needed some approvals from other departments. Most of the time, I was waiting for people to review and approve my work before running the protocols. I got some validation experience which is good, but still had less to do towards the
ProsIndustry experience, Downtime
ConsToo much downtime leads to job dissatisfaction, Poor communication and direction from management
Great place to train, then move on. (LSG not TF proper)
Again this is only for the Life Science Group not Thermo Fisher as a whole.
Thermo Fisher gave me the skills I needed to move on in a manufacturing environment. But unfortunately the toxic work environment doesn't keep the competent employees for more than a year or two. In my few years there I became the senior employee and saw three supervisors quit, three manufacturing managers quit, and two site leads move on.
--Management and promotions--
Managers and Supervisors either grow and develop in one department and are moved to another (post promotion) where the same skills do not apply (powder to liquid, GME [small scale] to core), or are hired from outside the company from non-bio/pharma related fields.To get considered for a higher position you either have to lie about work ethic, cut corners in quality that won't be noticed till products reach the customer, or lick boots while constantly talking bad about your peers to make yourself look better; even going as far as purposefully letting a peer or subordinate make a batch ruining mistake just to report it hours later.
I can not stress the fact that supervisors do not care about quality, only output. Leading to jobs being done in unclean environments and by untrained employees, almost always the supervisors themselves.
--Pay and coworkers--
In my years there we had multiple teams fluctuate between the preferred 10+ people and 3, due to people quitting and moving on to happier pastures always with better pay.
ProsTraining, free food on mandatory overtime, meet peer who move on to other fields.
ConsSignificant mandatory overtime, poor quality practices, toxic work environment.
It started out as an okay job. The benefits are good as far as warehouses are concerned, and after the company-wide raise at the start of 2020 the wage was more than enough for such easy work. You can even get a decent bonus of about 2 weeks worth of work once a year. However, things start getting strange when you realize your pay is not connected to your position in the building. You don't explicitly get a raise for, say, operating machinery, or getting switched to a department with work that is objectively higher responsibility, more complex, and more physically demanding. Rather, once a year you have a performance review with your manager and they decide whether they want to give you a raise or not. If you do get one, they are quite menial (maybe 3%). One dilemma that arises is that, for example, 2nd shift gets an automatic 10% pay increase, so someone who has been working 1st shift for 3 years that does much more work than a 2nd shift new hire will be making about the same wage. It just makes no sense. That kind of a system might make sense in an office building, but it just flat out does not work in manual labor, and is just one of the many ways this company tries to take advantage of and shortchange its employees.
There were a lot of frustrating things about the job, but it was tolerable and we did manage to get the job done until all this coronavirus stuff happened. There was an outbreak in the building and everything Thermo Fisher did to protect us was just too li
Proseasy depending on what department you are in, great people, good healthcare, 13 days of PTO/year
Conslong hours, mediocre equipment making the job more frustrating, poor communication, little room for advancement, no sick days
1.0
Technical Support Specialist | Greenville, NC | Mar 18, 2020
Easily the worst job I have ever had
This place is an absolute dumpster fire.
This is not a Thermo Fisher site, this is still a Patheon site. The downsides are endless, but maybe I'll list a few out, just to give a frame of reference:
-Turnover is absolutely out of control. Hardly anyone stays over the year mark, and for good reason. This hurts even more when you try and get trained on ANYTHING, as it ends up a "blind leading the blind" sort of scenario.
-No support at all from upper management.
-No training or on-boarding (unless you count reading 300 SOPs as training)
-Constant issues from the ancient equipment.
-Complete lack of management accountability.
-Clunky outdated systems. It WILL take you 4-6 months to gain access to the systems you need to do your job, but don't worry, there is no shortage of secretarial work for you to do while you wait. When you eventually do get system access, even a simple process will turn into a multi week project due to the compounding inefficiencies.
-Every functional group is so lean that they can't get anything done (correctly).
-Lord help you if you inherit any sort of project, you will NEVER get away from it, you will always be the "guy" long after you've achieved the goals set from the start.
-Operations is an absolute nightmare. No one *and I can't emphasize this enough* wants to stay in operations. No one.
-They will lie to your face during the interview process.
This place is straight out of the 80s and it shows. Functionally it runs like a mafia
On the surface, they can be a great company. HR is friendly and helpful, wages aren't bad, and certain of the managers and workers can be great and fun people! However, there are certain things to note about a few very specific individuals and over much of the observable company as a whole:
I understand workers are human, but the failure to follow procedure except when it's convenient for a manager or trainer is borderline appalling. Too many of the higher ranks who work there don't even know what the written procedures are, yet they enforce them too much or too loosely. They do not readily provide means of contacting managers to call out on time, but bothering to drive all the way across town to let them know that you cannot make it because of a legitimate personal emergency is counted as an occurrence (just because there was no legal way to arrive before the one-hour mark), despite one's every effort to be the best possible employee. They are selective in who's extra efforts they will recognize; good employees tend to transfer to other shifts just to escape the pettiness; they claim to want efficiency, but operate their workspace and procedures to a degree that they cannot meet their goals consistently, but somehow it's the fault of the cleanroom underlings.
Not a terrible place to work... If you are great at socializing with the right people. Otherwise, you get ignored when you need help the most, get torn on afterwards for not being fast enough, despite others getting l
I started work on 2nd shift for $18 an hour and some good benefits, however my attitude changed when I got on short term disability. I damaged my hand which was not work related. I went through Lincoln financial started a claim and was out of work for a month. I had emailed all paperwork through the claims office and got cleared for work by a doctor. As soon as i came back I was close to termination with 8 occurrences (9 to get fired) I looked at the paperwork my supervisor wanted me to sign and they had included 5 dates from when I was in the hospital. You think they would just call leave of absence team and straighten it out, but they made me go to the hospital and the two doctors offices to release another set of copies for the paperwork and i had to talk to my claim office DURING THE PANDEMIC. I just did what I was told. After the situation was taken care of they took me off of operating machines and i was stuck marking bags with one of the elderly coworkers. I was frustrated they weren't using me for what I was hired to do. They then announced that they were changing the shifts to run the factory 24/7 They switched me to overnights, however the company couldn't do this because of the pandemic so I was still on my shift for several months. I took it better then most employees who didn't get their preference. This i don't blame the company for because it wasn't their fault however when it came time to switch everyone's shift they failed to mention that I wasn't keeping my
ProsGood starting pay. Good benefits
ConsNo parking, unorganized management, gossip and drama in the assembly lines
In my time there, I have seen 3 site leads which all failed to keep top managers and supervisors. Quality control is a joke with no pressure to change policy. Many audits, recalls, and investigations went unsolved or not corrected. Inventory concerns frequently shut down or severely slowed down production. Mandatory overtime dug into multiple weekends and holidays, destroying work-life balance. No opportunities for advancement through training or travel or reimbursement for training or certification. Top management and departments seem to have changed month to month so you never knew who you were either reporting to or who you needed to talk to. HR was only helpful to provide you a 1-800 number for outsourced support which could take months to resolve, including payroll which after over 2 years of a payroll inconstancy I am still waiting on resolution. Health insurance policies were a joke, 401K match was the only saving grace if you were enrolled. The only way to advance is to push someone else under the bus or wait until they quit for the same reasons stated above. Stress and outrageous demands have caused serious health related issues with many past and present employees. There is also a serious age gap in the workplace, people with 20+ years are constantly stuck in their old ways of doing things which clash with the young innovative minds of newer employees who burn out or move on for that reason.
In all, This site for Thermo Fisher is stuck in the late 90's with no i
A well meaning but ultimately moralless management team.
I will start by saying Thermofisher is a large company and different sites have varying degrees of people and management practices, these comments are very much related to the Petaluma site in particular.
At this site the dollar is king. The workforce has been exploited and overworked for years running at 100% capacity 24/7 and being asked for the extra 110% when division and local management needs to show improvements or cover up mistakes. Investments in technology and machines were lacking for the better part of 20 years easily shown by the age and condition of a majority of the equipment. The most egregious issue is that the site is compared to sites in Mexico which have the flexibility to throw low cost labor in at a moments notice and solve problems with brute force, not a luxury of a California based site. Operations out of state mirror what I think leaderships actual policies here are which are that people are expendable and ends justify the means.
The team really means well, even management. But there is a corporate culture that punishes innovation. Management often says the right buzzwords but has no real clue how to give employees the space to make mistakes so that the site can truly learn and grow. Planning is incredibly short term often reviewing weekly numbers punishing dots on a graph that are down. To add insult to injury resolutions to wide scale site issues are expected to be solved and presented as a plan on a weekly basis. There is no real in depth unders
ProsFood Occasionally, Non-Management is team oriented
ConsOverworked Staff, Lack of long term planning, Human element is missing from company culture.
Peníze pěkně, pracovní atmosféra a motivace hrozná
Korporát. Spousta otravných školení - testů na pc, která musíte absolvovat. Ale opravdu spousta. Třeba i 20 ročně.
Po roce mě naprosto otrávila firemní atmosféra. Zaměstnanci si pořád na něco stěžují, že mají málo peněz (70.000 hrubého měsíčně mi nepřijde jako málo, opravdu ne). Naopak tam, kdy by měl zaměstnanec dostat více peněz, třeba když vymyslí novou technickou vymoženost k mikroskopu, která firmě vydělá miliony, tak dostane jen tašku s kalendářem, propiskou a bločkem a potřese si s ním ruku šéf před celou firmou, což by prý měla být ta odměna. Takže motivace něco dělat navíc absolutně 0. Nikdo neví, jak může být povýšen a většina ani po letech není a je na stejném postu.
Kolektiv je plný chytrých lidí, bohužel však ne všichni chtějí pomoci nováčkům. Některých vyloženě otravují dotazy, jelikož se potřebují soustředit na svou práci, ale když přijde dotyčného kamarád, nebo nějaká slečna, tak najednou to problém není a práci se najednou věnovat nepotřebuje. Takže žádné lidi s dobrým srdcem, že by vám někdo pomáhal, nebo vás dokonce vedl za ručičku, tak tady nečekejte. Pár výjimek se najde, ale to byste museli mít sakra štěstí, abyste jste byli zrovna s nimi v týmu. Nikdy jsem si nikoho nebral do pusy a nepomlouval jsem za zády, to samé se nedá říct o ostatních. Občas se člověk smutně dozvěděl, co kdo o něm komu říkal, či zrovna slyšel pomluvy na někoho jiného.
Výhodou je firemní kantýna. Vaří tu skvěle. Je to trošku dražší, ale s tím platem je to v pohodě. Opět vás otráví
ProsSkvělé vaří ve firemní kantýně, zajímavá práce - elektronové mikroskopy
ConsNulová motivace, žádná vidina postupu, špatný a konkurenčně chovající se kolektiv.
Questions And Answers about Thermo Fisher Scientific
What is the interview process like at Thermo Fisher Scientific?
Asked Jun 10, 2016
Post-Covid Interview: All interviews were held remotely through online platforms.
The first round was a 1x1 interview with the hiring manager. After the interview, I was told that I would appear for a panel interview with 3-4 people if shortlisted for the next round. At the end of the same week, I received an email from HR that my next round of panel interviews was scheduled. There were a total of 4 interviews spread out over a week and a half. There haven't been any updates on if the position has been filled up or not.
Answered Dec 1, 2020
Phone Interview with recruiter. Phone interview with team, on-site interview
Answered Jun 27, 2020
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Thermo Fisher Scientific a better place to work?
Asked Jan 21, 2018
Thermo Fisher Science making an impact in fulfilling service demand offering high quality products. Shipped Ups air Ground SurePost WI 537131 Top priority on time to healthcare facilities
Amazing in distribution
Answered Apr 2, 2021
Equal treatment of all
Answered Sep 26, 2020
Do any criminal charges disqualify you from employment here?
Asked Jun 16, 2016
You can have a felony and work here
Answered Jul 22, 2020
Yes, they did a background check and another after I was hired. The first background was from 7 years back the last one was from the DEA. The DEA background checked for any drug or alcohol convictions it went further back than 7 years. Thermo Fisher of course have to comply with the federal regulations because they are a pharmaceutical industry.
Answered May 15, 2020
How is the PTO? Do you get immediate time off benefits? Is there additional sick time?
Asked Apr 28, 2017
Directors and above get unlimited time off
Answered Feb 21, 2021
15 days/yr. (Increasing with Service) No additional sick days.
Answered Mar 13, 2019
How are the health benefits? Are dental and vision benefits offered as well?
Asked Feb 16, 2017
As an hourly employee I paid $119 a pay check. Dental was good and vision. I had to fight for medicine though so make sure you can get your meds.
Answered Dec 9, 2021
Excellent benefits (Health, Dental, and Vision) offered through Cigna.
