Not the same company as when I started - Business Analyst IQVIA Employee Review

The corporate culture has been changing over the years, and not necessarily for the better. When I was hired (over a decade ago), more employees had the sense that upper management considered employees as partners and a valuable resource. I was told by the hiring manager that he wanted every employee to take at least one instructor-led course each year and that there was a clear career progression path, and he expected employees being hired in my role to transition sometime between year four through seven to the next step in the career. Ten years later, I'm still in the same exact position, just reporting to a different manager due to reorgs. I've been told for the past several years that there is simply "no headcount" for the next level in my career path in our team, even though I am very well qualified for that next level, that I'd have to wait for someone at that level in our team to leave. Well, that happened - but they chose to downgrade the position that was vacated, so that there was STILL "no headcount" to move up. Additionally, my previous manager told me that it really didn't matter all that much that I was well-qualified for the next level up, because what matters more is who you know. (Which explains why the manager before that manager was able to hire both her son and her nephew into upper-level positions... nepotism is real). If you're great at schmoozing, networking, etc., you can get moved up - even if you really don't have the skills or experience for the job. And if you're really good at what you do - you might find yourself blocked from moving internally in the company. I managed to get ONE instructor-led course done in my first year; the subsequent courses in the series were cancelled and haven't returned. Since then, I haven't been able to get into a single instructor-led course. I've applied internally to various positions, but the competition is fierce. In at least two cases, I was informed that they'd already pre-selected someone for the open position - even before the posting was officially available to apply for internally. In other words, they were just getting the minimum number of required interviews out of the way so they could hire the person they wanted to hire. Other changes - several years ago, IQVIA eliminated the corporate summer picnic. Fast forward another year, and the corporate afterhours holiday party has been replaced by individual employee in-office pot-luck lunches. organized by department. IQVIA switched from an accrual PTO system to an "unlimited" PTO system. How much time each employee actually can take off seems to be highly subjective based on each manager's personal opinion. Some managers think that anything more than two weeks' vacation is excessive. I heard one manager tell a particular employee that he was too valuable and no one else could to the work he did, so he would not ever be allowed a day off - and no, the manager was not joking. Unsurprisingly, that employee quit a few months later. Late last year, I talked to my manager about some PTO, and was told that my PTO would be approved, but privately the manager felt anything above 10 days over the course of a year was "a luxury". (Never mind that when I had started with the company, I started with 20 PTO days). This week, a colleague - who has only been with IQVIA for three or four years - informed me that he always takes at least 30 days of vacation each year and sometimes even 35 days. PTO approval requests often boil down to "how happy have you made your manager lately" along with an individual manager's PERSONAL opinion of what constitutes an acceptable amount of paid time off. The company makes a lot of claims about caring for their employees, yet, the company chose to eliminate their Wellness match program, which provided a 50% match on the first $600 an employee spent on specific wellness goods and services. Granted, that was only $300/year - but the program signaled to employees that the company cared about employees and was, to some degree, our "partner" in investing in our health. Now that program is gone. Likewise, IQVIA's employee recognition program (Impact Award program) was designed to reward employees who went above and beyond in their work. That was also discontinued. And despite the claims that IQVIA wants highly educated, career-driven employees, this past fall IQVIA eliminated the tuition reimbursement program without warning. The annual bonus and salary reviews have changed too. The annual bonus the past couple of years has been about half as what it was ten years go. As far as merit raises, you have to practically walk on water AND be in the bottom quartile of your pay grade in order to get any raise - and it's typically about half of the inflation rate, so don't plan to maintain your current standard of living if you stay with the company for long. At this point, my purchasing power as compared to ten years ago has been reduced to about 88% of what it was, because every year, the merit increase is less than inflation. These cost-cutting measures are the kind of moves I'd expect to see at a company in dire financial distress, but the company is doing well - so these moves send a different message - that upper management doesn't care about employees - and they don't care that employees KNOW that upper management doesn't care. You might ask if I'm so unhappy here, why do I stay? Some of these changes were just put into effect in the last six weeks or so - eliminating the wellness match program, the tuition reimbursement program, and the employee recognition program - were all recent cuts. My manager is great to work for and is just as frustrated as I am about these changes. At my last merit increase review, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my merit increase was twice that amount recommended by the chart put out by senior management. (2% instead of 1%), so I know my manager is doing her best with what she's got to work with.