Pros
Novartis is one of the best places that I’ve ever work. It provides challenge, interesting work, and colleagues that are truly enjoyable to work with. As a senior leader I felt I had the latitude to make decisions and drive human resource strategy. I was able to grow both personally and professionally over the 4+ years in the organization. If you work in Basel it’s truly international with a unique campus that is built on innovation principles. I was truly blessed by having access to top management and the ability to influence the company. The business is very solid and the business line leaders are very strong and solid in the their decision making and ability to run the business. Vas the new CEO is a breath of fresh air. He is truly an inspirational leader and will bring the company to new heights. He is a sharp business leader as well as a person who is grounded in his own identity and values. I congratulate the board for taking this risk on Vas. There are incredible people working at Novartis with incredible backrounds and interests. When you speak to some of the employees you are in awe of what they’ve accomplished in such a shot period of time. Financially the organization pays well and the stock is quite effective tool for retention.
Cons
When you are part of the tribe this is the best place to work. However, when there is no room for you to grow or go to the next job or level then you are ostracized and greatly diminished. In the last four years, the HR function has been weakened and people have been put in roles that do have the depth of experience. Too many good colleagues in the organization were pushed out, not because they were not effective but because it’s all about personality and who likes who. I worked in both Pharma and in Group and Pharma was not as political. You were rewarded for great work and valued. In Group, it was all about who could get to the top and your colleagues were constantly elbowing you out of the way so they could get the next position. I’ve never really seen anything like this. If you are a specialist in the HR arena I would recommend this is not the right organization for you at the time. The current senior HR leadership team values the generalist much more than the specialist. Rather go to an organization that truly values the expertise you bring. The problem with Novartis’ Talent Management is that on paper they say one thing to you but in reality your managers are not being honest and telling you what a realistic career path is for you in the organization. Some leaders are better than others but typically you don’t good coaching and feedback to improve your performance. There is a lot of gotcha at the end of the year, which is completely unnecessary. When I decided to leave the organization because I truly wanted to contribute and I was being given work below my level, I was uninvited to meetings and was given very little work to do. In all my years, I’ve never seen such waste in an organization. All other jobs I had, I worked up until the moment I left. Novartis must have so much money that they don’t care if they pay big salaries and an employee does very little work. The other downside of Novartis is it’s very far behind in technology enablement. A lot of the processes are manual or if they are automated there are too many steps. Employees spend a lot of time doing low value work or working around processes that don’t work. It’s not a culture of process improvement so people don’t stop and say we need to fix this. For a company that has so many resources, they need to invest in technology enablement and digitilizaiton to truly fulfill it’s potential. Although the company wants to be more innovative, the current performance management system does not allow it since you don’t get partial credit for taking risks and trying new things. You get a great performance rating if you do what your manager wants and you color in the lines. It’s such a shame since there are truly so many talented people working at Novartis.
