Command and control style leadership - werkgeversreview Account Manager bij BioPhorum Operations Group

Full time work from home Enough travel to keep it interesting but not over burden Flexible working time and trust in employees Significant efforts by leadership team to advance maturity of the company

Full time remote can seem a little isolating but many have experienced this in the past during Covid Private Equity company so long term future 'home' unknown

There are a few pros: - As a remote first company, onboarding is pretty good and I can't fault that aspect. You get set up quickly and I had a really experienced 'buddy' to connect with and help get going; - Remote work is good but bear in mind that doesn't always equal flexible, there are core hours; - Despite the cons I list, I had many lovely colleagues who I loved working with and did not want to leave, would happily have kept working with them. My cons don't reflect them but the Executive so if you do choose to work here you will find many good colleagues; - I was attracted to the mission of the company of, connecting global pharma leaders, that part was really enjoyable and I met some amazing individuals at those companies who were fantastic, insightful people.

As expected from my one star scoring, the cons here are numerous. Lets start with the employee polices as these apply to all and would be common to anyone considering joining. At the time of my exit, none of the policies have been updated since 2022 (and I kept copies) which is poor in itself, next couple of bullet points is how that went for me: - Sick leave here is 20 days full pay then statutory. I had cause to query this and was told (quote) “people have had cancer diagnoses here and not received more than 20 days paid leave. Luckily that situation resolved itself” – I should’ve RAN when told that. Be advised, if you do choose to work here, get an income protection policy that covers everything from a sneeze to cancer; - No company paid maternity leave, only statutory. When a colleague investigated this they were told (quote) “when we set up the business, most people had had their children so we didn’t see the point” – so if you expect to have child or find yourself unexpectedly pregnant, don’t expect support; - If called for jury duty, company policy is two weeks paid then Government minimum. Again, when queried this is correct by law but if called for service for more than two weeks you basically will drop salary drastically, even though service is required as a public duty. My line manager told me to tell the court officer this to see if the courts would supplement pay, line manager said they prob wouldn’t and this would be a way to “get me out of jury service” so public service means squat to these people; - Pay disparity is rife here and job descriptions mean squat. Again, when I had cause to enquire about this, the outcome from CEO (via HR), I was told “similar work for similar pay” – looking at job descriptions it was demonstrably different work and not similar at all. As ever, HR only look to cover the company rather than the employee, its easier for the CEO to underpay employees than justify to investors the increases. I’ve since learned others are in a similar situation, they have chosen to stay, I did not. And my line manager didn't go to bat for me either in the interest of self preservation; - When I queried why collectively these policies are so detrimental to employees I was told “it’s a PE backed company” meaning they will foreground their investors (Five Arrows) before anyone, members/clients or employees. Given that they are a remote only company with only employees as their major resource you might expect better but no. And using ‘PE backed company’ is a widely used excuse/reason/get out of jail card, for whatever they poor behaviour want to justify. To me that is incredibly weak; - Other aspects of employment like pension are pretty poor, wage increases are generally around inflation level and nothing else. Now for the rest of the working environment as experienced when I was there… - Employees are not prioritised by the new CEO at all, this was evident on even her first ‘speech’ introducing herself to the company when employees were very far down the list of matters being addressed despite the company employee ‘satisfaction’ survey trending downwards the whole time I was employed. Her priorities are investors > investors> investors > clients/members > maybe employees and the working environment reflects it; - CEO doesn’t want to address any historical problems (of which there are quite a few, see other reviews, these persist) and has quite openly said so. Anyone who brings it up has that door firmly slammed in their face, even if it’s a means to build on problems of the past and offer solutions. The BioPhorum workforce is still quite bruised from changes over the past few years, staff morale is low and no one is addressing it; - Needless to say, if you speak up and voice any concerns, you are on the outs pretty quickly. Its obvious who the favourites are, as pointed out in other reviews here, if you are happy to keep your mouth shut you will probably do quite well here. I prefer to be able to look myself in the mirror each morning so I didn’t; - Profit more and more is the purpose of the company with the mission pretty much secondary to all of that. For anyone joining the company that has been a scientist before, that can be uncomfortable and hard to live with. Again, if you voice this, they act like you don’t understand ‘business’ when really its their own priorities and inexperience showing – and if you look closely at LinkedIn profiles, the inexperience shows with much of it only been gained within BioPhorum rather than a lot of previous experience elsewhere; - Despite the fact that BioPhorum hires mainly experienced rather than entry level staff, they have a curious way of infantilizing the staff: experienced people are talked down to quite openly in meetings unless of course you are bringing up something in the Executive/investors favour. There are loads more to say but that’s probably enough. Just run, far and fast.