associate engineer

scientist

engineer

associate scientist

associate

Abbott

The coworkers are the best part of the company, they are generally friendly, helpful, and cooperative. The work was mainly data analysis, protocol authorization and execution, experiment troubleshooting, data integrity checks, blood requisition, and bench studies. The job hours were 8am-5pm with a 1 hour lunch (unpaid) and two 15 minute breaks (paid).

The workload is fairly intense, there's stuff you'll have to do at home to finish on time. They'll tell you not to but realistically you have to for certain projects to stay on schedule. The salary was paid by a temporary agency and was ~$32/hour. Abbott doesn't really have an HR department so most of that of work is contracted out to temp agencies.

Word of warning: IF YOU ARE CONTRACT YOU CAN BE LAID OFF AT ANY TIME WITHOUT NOTICE AND ABBOTT IS NOT REQUIRED TO PROVIDE A REASON. I moved across the province to start work with the company at its Ottawa location. bout 3 months in I received a phone call after one of my shifts that I had been terminated. I was offered no explanation besides "it just doesn't seem like the right fit". I'm open to all kinds of criticism, I relish it because it is a learning opportunity and a chance to improve. However, at no point during my tenure was I ever informed about any dissatisfaction with my performance. Literally none. I worked my hardest for them, often during my own time at home and on weekends, in order to help the company achieve its goals as efficiently as possible. Not once was I ever approached or notified that my work failed to meet standards. I feel like I had a great repertoire with the two managers I reported to, both of whom seemed helpful and, in all fairness, were quite approachable if you had any questions. I was far from home and  left up the creek without a paddle after signing an apartment lease thinking my contract would cover me for at least one year of employment. And I was not the only one. Roughly 30% of the new hires were also laid off without warning the same week. This was after a 3 month interview/vetting process and 3 months working for the company so I have a hard time believing 

If Abbott and its management believe that this is an acceptable way to treat workers then they do not deserve the privilege of operating within Canadian borders. A disgraceful and back-stabbing company in my books, I would encourage anyone looking for work in the industry to stay far, FAR away.

Simple issues take months to resolve. Due to regulatory requirements you are required to be slow and methodical, but you will always be pushed to get things done as fast as possible by upper management. Timelines are impossible to estimate since you regularly require approvals from other departments with completely different priorities than yours. Most of my time was spent begging for the appropriate approver to simply review the work I did, rather than the actual content of the job.

Sleazy hiring practices keep you underpaid with poor benefits on temporary contracts for undetermined periods of time. Benefits seem to be great once you get permanent, but you can go for 1-2 years as a temporary worker before you have the chance to be offered a permanent role. Turnover is rampant and upper management is too slow to approve the hiring of new positions, so if someone leaves, that workload will be dropped on you for an undetermined amount of time. The only people with the power to change things have exclusively worked at Abbott for their entire careers, so they don't even have the perspective of other companies and industries to see how bleak this company is for lower level and temporary workers. 

On the plus side, lower level managers and your direct peers are very helpful and responsive, though for the most part it's because they share your same struggles and frustrations. Even if it's temporary work, Abbott does hire new grads and early career professionals so this is a great way to get your foot in the door. As an engineer, it's possibly the only place in Ottawa to learn about statistical analysis, data driven decision making, biomedical device design and qualification, as well as specific manufacturing processes such as chemistry, wafers, plastics, laser cutting, high volume assembly, and chemical/bioreagent testing for biomedical devices.

The Abbott brand, is nothing but an illusion. What they say they value and what they actually value is completely different. Quality, safety, innovation, opportunity, loyalty is all trumped by one thing and that's their bottom line and maintaining the status quo. The more profits they make, greedier they get. They value their shareholders more than their own employees. They let go hard working dedicated veterans to hire unexperienced contractors for half the cost and if you are hired through an agency, you will be treated as third class. If you are night shift, you might as well be invisible. They do not value anyones opinion unless you are part of the management team or a highly educated engineer even if you do have the right answers. Half the management team is incompetent and only care about making themselves look good no matter who they have to throw under the bus. The other half have no choice but to follow what is asked of them and spend to much time defending the bad ones. They will never admit fault or take responsibility for their own actions. They like to start new projects but no one ever follows through anything. 

If you just want a steady paycheck and and go home after your shift, this might be a good place to work. But if you want to make something of yourself and value integrity and honesty, this isn't for you.

I was a contract worker with Adecco with no benefits, and the full time staff would take advantage of you. They would take extra long breaks while you had to operate their machine and your machine at the same time even though it was against FDA regulations. When we got inspected by the FDA we were told to only work on one machine. The management is not honest. The full time staff were bitter and would pick fights with the Adecco employees. We had no rights. I was assaulted by two full time staff members but of course they would say it was a joke because they had all the rights to do what they wanted with you. When you make a complaint about their behaviour the management whitewashing the incident and then turns the table on you by gaslighting and making you out to be the villain. The whole interview was about whether you can get along with difficult employees so they are not shy about saying it at the get go. It's a warning.

Supportive management and great team work along with the realization that what I do on a daily bases improves the quality of life of a patient.
This was a period of great change. Abbott EPD had been purchased by Mylan. There was great concern about the future outcomes.We maintained a continuity, of "business as usual" and our focus on what needed to be done to achieve sales targets at the same focus on the needs of our customers ( all HCPs and patients ) All this is a time when morale was low. 
Best part of my day- when a KOL or patient says your drug or the information you provided improved my life. Very powerful!

You will be on contract for years. On contract there are no benefits, no paid sick days, no paid vacation days. Abbott loves to use contract agencies. You will also be thrown overboard to work with minimal help, but will get roasted for not doing it how they want. Very little room for advancement, everyone get empty promises of promotions and then get told there’s no money in the budget. They definitely take advantage of workers. It’s a very toxic and very competitive workplace. People try to take credit for other peoples work so they get recognized and get a permanent position. Depending on your manager you will have no work life balance. 

Abbott is a great place to work in general, the managers are competent and appreciate their team members. The workload was well-balanced and there are opportunities for overtime in most positions. The culture is mostly positive, with the ability to learn from specialists in a variety of fields.

There are issues with them using temporary staffing agencies and those do not provide good benefits. They also tend to move staff around between departments, especially if you are in the lower positions, so the job you are hired for is not necessarily what you will be doing day-to-day. Also, you may be required to move to a different department/job in order to get hired officially by Abbott (and getting benefits) as opposed to working as a temp.

In Field Service, ideally someone ought to balance home and work life. At Abbott Labs, the mentality is that your work is your family. Although the company annual retreats were fun and rewarding, the constant phone calls from MGMT and their minions made the experience very stressful.

Management takes advantage of naive immigrants in Toronto who aren't aware of their rights not to be harrassed, not to be named-called, and not to have overtime removed from their pay.

Worst of all, these internal failures within the company are apparent to the clients and they see this through the high turnover rate, continuous change in policies, and general complacency among the "team".

Over the last 2 years, the common theme around the the office is "you never thought it could get worse but it does".  Bringing in people from other Abbott sites to manage departments, yet they have no idea how to manage, lead or let alone understand the topic (example:production planning). The management that remains (not from other Abbott sites) have no back bone to stand up to do what is right for the employees. 

They all lead by fear of perpetual layoffs. They lay off all of the experienced resources to bring in younger cheaper resources, that take years to come up to the same level as the people they laid off. 

If you are not a "yes" person to everything, this is not the place for you.

A lot of travel was involved in at this company. As a case manager there would be many hospitals in a large territory that needed to be covered. One's ability to read and interpret care plans as well as predict possible outcomes. Aided in the delivery of safe and cost effective care. At times would be difficult to speak with doctors and encourage them to modify or enhance plans of care to ensure the timely and safe discharge of patients home.

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