Pros
Most of the people are friendly and great fun to work with. Head of department is very approachable and always makes time for people, brings a very positive energy to the department which is refreshing. The work itself can often be rewarding. It is a foot in the door if you are interested in the field.
Cons
Salary is not competitive at all - you can easily find very similar roles at other companies for more money. Other companies will most likely treat you better too. Management do not treat people in the lab very well - they can be unsupportive, condescending, and often just downright rude, which doesn't create a very pleasant atmosphere to work in. They claim to always be there if we need to speak to them about something, yet are unapproachable. You feel that you can't speak up for fear of painting a target on your back. We are constantly told that we aren't to work as a team to get work completed and, on multiple occasions, people have been reprimanded for having emotions and branded as unprofessional or immature. There have been several instances of staff members being reduced to tears by the callousness of management. There are also definite cases of favouritism, which is unacceptable. We are always told that there is training on the horizon and that there is room for progression. But this is never the case. You will be waiting and waiting and waiting for training which will rarely ever come. And since training is so delayed, any chance of progression is most definitely in the far distant future. You will instead be left doing a thankless job day in, day out; never receiving recognition and only being given feedback by management when something has gone wrong. This constant negativity wreaks havoc with the mental health of employees, despite the image that the company portrays on social media as championing the mental health of their staff. The targets and volume of work set is far too high and, despite us flagging this multiple times, we are made to feel that we simply do not work hard enough. They do little to understand the reality of the work that we have to do and instead choose to tell us that we are too slow or even that we spend too much talking. This is a real slap in the face as these same people can often be found sat around chatting while we in the lab are stressed about completing work on time, often barely getting the time to take adequate lunch breaks let alone sit around chatting. The stress of the work is exacerbated by the insistence that the very small team work as two separate shifts. HR are aware of many of the issues that make this an unpleasant place to work for most people, either through exit interviews or the focus groups that are held to 'improve things', but nothing is ever done to improve things. Things are either brushed over or ignored completely.