Charles River Laboratories Employee Reviews

good place to work when your with the right people handful of people just want to see you fail, no point complaining about them though nothing ever gets done about it and they just make it more difficult for you to work comfortably when they know you have tried to speak about their behavior towards you, cant teach a old dog new tricks even if that just means basic human decency, the longer you stay the longer you realize some people have been in the job to long, but you shouldn't let a sad person bring you down even though it just to make themselves feel better.

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Over worked underpaid

Animal Technician (Former Employee) - Manston, Kent - 18 September 2023

Cram to much learning in 1 day ! Team leaders get annoyed when you ain’t fast enough Everyone talks about everyone Moved to rooms with a day notice Management don’t care about you ( act like they do but don’t ) The amount of work you have to do for the wage they give you REALLY NOT WORTH IT!1hr day light you see Honestly never again

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Insights into Charles River Laboratories

Based on 29 survey responses

Areas for improvement

Trust in colleagues
Sense of belonging
Energising work tasks

Great environment but no development

Customer Service Advisor (Former Employee) - Kettering, Northamptonshire - 7 September 2023

Great work environment that encourages teamwork and team/individual development. The pay is not bad, but the benefits are better. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to move up within the company. Your workload increases while your job position never changes.

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Wouldn't go back if you paid me

Licensed Animal Technician (Former Employee) - Margate, Kent - 3 September 2023

Blame culture, overworked and underpaid. Stress is overwhelming, no union to cover you when you get blamed for things going wrong. Never-ending workload with barely any days off

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Be Aware!!!

Electrician (Former Employee) - Tranent, East Lothian - 20 July 2023

Started and finished at charles River this year after a recommendation This place has a toxic environment never appreciated, overworked and management are all corrupt. stay away folks don't go there.

Pros

None

Cons

None

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Awful team leaders

Licensed Animal Technician (Former Employee) - Kent - 8 July 2023

Teak leaders do not care about your feelings, pain or workload. They will not help you with work, just give more work and expect all of it done. Not equally distributed workload. Team leaders are rude, do not like people speaking back even in the smallest way and cannot take any criticism

Pros

Occassional pizza

Cons

Overworked, not paid enough

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Stressful and would not recommend it at all

Recycling Operative (Former Employee) - Ramsgate - 27 June 2023

What is the best part of working at the company?Good working hours, onsite parking. Bad work culture. Badly run What is the most stressful part about working at the company?Badly run, disorganised, bad work culture, very stressful and lots of office politics What is the work environment and culture like at the company?Stressful working environment and oppressive work culture What is a typical day like for you at the company?Stressful as badly run. You're left picking up pieces

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It’s ok.

Lab Technician (Current Employee) - Tranent - 20 June 2023

It’s an ok place to work. Training isn’t great, although they’re trying to improve that. Most people are lovely to work with. It can get a bit hectic work wise and you feel there isn’t enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Pros

Bonus once a year

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Great for experience but quicker progression elsewhere

Study Director (Former Employee) - Tranent, East Lothian - 5 June 2023

We had a great team and we all left around the same time to move onto new ventures as there were serious limits on progression. It was a bit of "if leadership likes you" you could get opportunities. I was lucky and had an incredible manager. But I witnessed senior leadership essentially follow and watch a team member who they didn't like to micro manage them and find excuses to get them into trouble. Our dept was good in comparison to others especially the one I left before taking up a project management role.

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for me , I enjoyed my experience , enjoyed going to my work

Assistant animal technician (Former Employee) - East Lothian - 1 June 2023

What is the best part of working at the company?I enjoyed all aspects of my work What is the most stressful part about working at the company?Deadlines , but it's a necessary part of the job What is the work environment and culture like at the company?Where I work it was good , , decent bosses , approachable What is a typical day like for you at the company?Hectic , but made the working day quicker

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Jobs at Charles River Laboratories

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Assistant Technician 1

Industrial Placement Opportunities

Harlow

18 days ago

Quality Assurance Officer

Keele

30+ days ago

Overworked and underpaid

Study Director (Current Employee) - Tranent, East Lothian - 5 May 2023

All departments are overworked at the moment. The most senior management and company management in America ignore staff comments and only care about bottom line. Study Directors above level one do not get overtime but expected to do 10+ hours of overtime in a week. They go on about work life balance but there currently is no work life balance with the company. Maternity and paternity benefits are bare minimum and there is no support for new parents returning to work, you have to jump through loops just to get the flexible working.

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Some departments are OK, others are terrible.

Study Director (Current Employee) - Tranent, East Lothian - 21 April 2023

I can empathise with the really negative reviews. There are major issues at Tranent. Some departments are nice and reasonable and others are overwhelmed and understaffed. Potentially a good place to build skills and move on from. Lateral movement in the company is achievable but you can only really move up the payscales if you are a study director. Pay is poor for technicians. The high up management over in America is detatched and data orientated. If things arent currently collapsing they dont care.

Pros

Some departments are good. Potential to build usefull skills.

Cons

Short of staff, culture of overtime and negativity. Remote location (you need a car)

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Understaffed

Animal Technician (Current Employee) - Tranent, East Lothian - 27 March 2023

Plenty overtime due to unable to keep staff. Money is poor for the industry of pharmaceutical other random departments being paid more for less work

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Horrendous

Assistant animal technician (Current Employee) - Tranent, East Lothian - 5 March 2023

Rubbish job and staff, would avoid like the plague. Over worked and underpaid. Really can't think of any perks to working here. Management are awful and intimidating.

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No progression

Technician (Former Employee) - Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh - 23 February 2023

Even if you’re capable of your job, there are no ways to progress unless you have a degree which in this day and age means nothing. I’ve since progressed significantly elsewhere. Their loss.

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No camaraderie

Receptionist (Former Employee) - Saffron Walden - 14 January 2023

Felt extremely lonely in this role because no other admin came into the office so as a new starter there was no support from anybody. Infrastructure just didn’t feel right and so was not for me. There’s never any cover for breaks. And I believe that health and safety was often overlooked.

Pros

None

Cons

Very difficult place

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Overworked, underpaid, undervalued

Pathology (Former Employee) - Tranent, East Lothian - 8 December 2022

Don't get paid nearly enough to put up with the ever changing pressure and style of work, your idea of reasonable amount of overtime to suit the needs of the business is very very different from the company's idea of reasonable amount of overtime. Offered a cash incentive to stay in some departments but have to jump through hoops to get it and only offered to some despite there being several depts in tatters due to everyone leaving, senior staff saying "there's the door then if you want to leave" rather than trying to retain experienced staff members and make things better.

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They get their money worth out you

Cleaner & glass cleaner (Current Employee) - Tranent - 18 August 2022

Cleaning job very stressful Not flexible for cleaners cover different areas all the time money not bad could be a lot better hours are not bad mon to fri

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Avoid

Senior Laboratory Technician (Former Employee) - UK - 12 July 2022

No care for employees struggling during COVID. Poor management. Lack of empathy and long term employee investment. Low level employees were nice however.

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Overworked and under appreciated

Senior Assistant Scientist (Current Employee) - Edinburgh - 1 April 2022

Volume of work is very high and the pay does not reflect the work analysts do. The company likes to say they care and are listening but the analysts are overworked and not paid accordingly, without them producing data the company fails, but they are not treated fairly.

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Sample prep technician

Sample Preparation Scientist (Covid Testing Centre) (Former Employee) - Cambridge, Cambridgeshire - 5 February 2022

Good people and culture, able to learn other techniques if you wanted to. Was busy but we handled it. But pay was way to low compared to other covid labs.

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