Genomics England Reviews

-Far far far too much management. Any piece of work has to climb a mountain of bureaucracy before it can actually get done, and this is made worse by the barrage of middle management who’s only ‘input’ is to slow things down so they can look like they’re involved. -Related to above, too many meetings. But the company is taking steps to fix this. - Bullying and, to a lesser extent, sexual harassment are known issues that are not being addressed. - No career progression. Internal promotions based on favouritism. Criteria to get any substantial pay rise are not clear. Annual pay rises barely cover inflation. - Redundancies have been happening over the last few years. Entire teams let go and told to reapply for ‘new’ positions, which are essentially the same role. - The ‘corporate’ culture often feels like it dims any sort of scientific spark or fun ‘blue sky’ work. This is probably very team-dependant - Not much socialisation, doesn’t help that the office is in Canary Wharf, so everywhere nearby is expensive and full of obnoxious clientele. -A non-profit, government-funded organisation is extremely vulnerable to political change. In three years Prime Minister Farage could call the organisation ‘woke nonsense’ and shut it down. But I suppose many people would lose their jobs under a Farage regime so that’s not a GEL-specific con.

• Heavy bureaucracy slows everything down • Decision making can be painfully slow and unclear • Poor leadership and weak communication from management • Career progression feels limited, Internal promotion system feels unclear, with progression not always appearing to be based on merit or transparent criteria • Innovation is often talked about more than actually enabled • Too much internal process and politics gets in the way of doing good work • Culture can feel inconsistent across teams, depending heavily on your manager • Feedback and concerns do not always seem to lead to meaningful change