Incompetent leadership and a toxic culture - Anonymous employee LifeArc Employee Review

Great people and benefit package.

The C-suite blames others for its shortcomings and prioritises visibility at high-profile events over operational integrity. Priorities shift abruptly, often depending on the CEO’s mood.

Good salary and benefits (annual leave). Good work life balance if your line manager is not a micromanager. Nice colleagues across different departments. Some work is inspiring.

As other reviews pointed out, people disappear in silence. The strategy is a word that you hear daily but everyone knows it changes with a single shake up in the Exec team. This leaves the Science direction completely unsustainable in the long term. Apparently we want to see patient impact sooner but unfortunately money is spent on new buildings leases. The new CEO just runs with the initial idea she had since joining and pulls the rug out from under people's feet. Then, there is a bit of resistance from staff and a quasi U-turn. We have been told that we are doing too much as an organisation (fair point) yet we added a whole new clinical layer. Did not like the phrase "translational research" - get rid of it even though it was the main identity point for the organisation for a while. Quite a few redundancies of lab scientists but then loads of recruitment activity a year later even though we don't want to increase the headcount? Surely that will lead to more redundancies later on especially that there is some overlap in various teams' remit with some team leaders being super territorial after building their "empires". As a general rule, people are told that their projects are discontinued and are then kept in the dark whether there is future opportunities/redeployment until the last minute despite months of reassurance and "planning" next steps. Things are much worse for contractor/temps. Don't get me wrong - you are considering taking a job here, it can still be a nice place to work, especially if you are unhappy in your current workplace. However, don't count on the organisation being a long term source of job satisfaction.