Fareva Reviews

2.8

40% would recommend to a friend

(207 total reviews)

Bernard Fraisse

22% approve of CEO

30% positive business outlook

Fareva has an employee rating of 2.8 out of 5 stars, based on 207 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Fareva employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

207 reviews
1.0
19 Feb 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Seriously, all these positive reviews from july/aug are disgusting and embarrassing. Super easy to get hired if you're entry level or recent grad. Great place to learn the framework that large manufacturers operate by (cGMP basics, EHS basics, cleaning validation, quality control, etc). nearly everybody there is nice to be around if you're not a problem personality yourself.

Cons

VERY sick site. within the last 12mo: Plant manager 'retired', Aerosols ops manager 'moved on', country manager that was managing day to day ops of the Aerosol side was 'reallocated within the company', EHS manager left, and MANY others lower down the ladder. Executive mismanagement has created a situation where the site is incapable of fulfilling customer commitments. The path out of this situation is difficult. The current leadership has chosen: lying to customers (themselves global household names), working everyone like slaves (mandatory weekends and OT with no plan out), and dangerous compromises on safety. If interviewing ask point blank about how many fires they've had in the Aerosol dept in the last 12mo. Ask point blank whether senior management has every asked employees to lie on the company's behalf directly to representatives of a clienet. Ask point blank what % of client PO's have been clawed back as the site has been unable to fulfill the orders. You will be lied to yourself, but it will be instructive for you to watch someone you know is lying so you can recognize it in the future. They will sell all this turnover as a pro "great avenues for promotion" but their pay is garbage and to stand out requires a total sacrifice of you entire life as 50+ is the basic norm and all the real contributors give MUCH more. The site has separated itself from all values and ethics and if you have any you will be professionally hindered by them.

1.0
30 Aug 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good entry level positions available for recent college graduates. Good experiences to be had that hopefully can translate to other more successful companies. Opportunities to perform in a stressful environment. Start out with decent vacation (12 days)

Cons

Poor benefits package, health insurance is terrible, no system of raises or clear paths to career advancement. Low Moral on site. Positions that open up are often already filled (the buddy-system over job performance and capabilities of candidate). Work environment can be hostile at times with long-term legacy employees being overly comfortable with coworkers (i.e. cursing, yelling, intentional sabotage, bullying and blaming others). HR department consists of 4 people, so the HR department is largely unable to give attention to these issues (or most others) and these type of things run rampant in the office. Moral is obviously low when you walk in the door because there is a history of the site where things shifted from a Branded Pharma Company (Wyeth/ Pfizer) and then turned into a 3rd party cosmetic and sunscreen manufacturer (Fareva). A few years after the conversion the employees salaries were cut 12.5% and since that time (2011) there have been no raises or cost of living increases. Instead particular people are given "raises" by creating job positions and filling them with the desired candidate. These types of practices lead to negative moral and that stuff hangs like a perpetual cloud over the Fareva Richmond Site. Extremely high turnover in my group as I have seen 50% turnover of the group members leave during 2018. I think there is some disconnect between the owner Bernard Fraisse and the people here in Virginia working for him.; managers/ upper levels of the company are all French (most related too) and there is at minimum a difficult language barrier and at worst a French company trying to get Americans to do as much work as possible with as little investment on site and investment in employees as can get away with. Lastly, safety practices are of question. There have been fires/ incidents that have occured on site and are only notified about by the people that were involved or through the rumor mill. I personally am made to feel unsafe because instead of discussing these things and explaining what happened it is hidden from employees. If there is a site closure due to inclement weather than employees are forced to use a vacation day for the closure.

2.0
25 Jul 2019

Sinking Ship

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Vacation and sick time are pretty nice. A great STARTING job fresh out of college.

Cons

No raises, no promotions (no matter how hard you work or out perform other employees). Company is going bankrupt, big layoffs, and a large amount of favoritism.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 207 Reviews

Glassdoor has 500 Fareva reviews submitted anonymously by Fareva employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Fareva is right for you.