1.Leadership: Probably it’s biggest gap. Chicago is very disconnected from the reality in the field. You will not get to ever see the CEO - he’s very well ranked externally but is not an inspirational or culture driven leader. No clear sense on the Company’s vision for the future or the culture the company is looking to build. Very old school in his thinking. He’s due for retirement, although his successor’s leadership and abilities are yet to be put to the test and there’s not a lot of confidence he’ll drive a positive change in culture. Company highly oriented to financial/business results, which has produced a long standing reputation and high yield in its stock price. However, with the lack of communication related to the vision, lack of culture strategy, and extremely poor integration work with the new companies, the question is how long will these good returns continue. Leadership in certain divisions move (or are moved) at such a high pace so constant change in strategy and direction confuses people and has driven turnover in some areas.
2.Infraestructure: Organization is very top heavy, bureaucratic, and slow to move, with limited resources to support the everyday work. Outdated and non connected systems make the most simple data requests a challenge and are highly people dependent - each employee defines the way to manage processes, creating lots of variability and inefficiencies. Constant last minute fires requiring data validation generating big administrative burden. Lack of clarity related to how to measure goals and metrics resulting in constant re-do of analysis and differences in how divisions measure results.
3. Human Resources: Lack of strong HR leadership or strategy. Very old school as well and stuck in the old way of doing HR. Employee benefits can vary by division and legacy teams from integrated companies do not get the same pay as benefits as Abbott employees (ex. Bonus targets or pension) causing big tension and dissatisfaction as they make less money than Abbott employees. Force ranking performance system does not foster collaboration nor is it objective because goales do not tend to be very well aligned at the beginning of the year, so ends up driving loss of morale. No employee surveys or culture initiatives. Lack of listening to employee opinions or how it impacts morale.
4. Workforce: Highly tenured workforce, not the best place for millenial and early talent. Many long standing Abbott employees who have not moved with the changes in direction, remain in their roles due to grandfathered pension benefits and high pay, generate loss of productivity, increase in workload for other newer team members and high dismotivation. Some of them block good talent to be promoted.
5. Offices: Many old buildings and facilities across the affiliates. Your experience will highly depend on where you end up located. Capital investment is managed tightly so expect to work in old outdated buildings with a decor that was stuck in the 80’s or early 90’s not very inspiring.
