Great company has lost itself in quest to become a big pharma player.
Pros
Takeda still has pretty good benefits. Work hours are flexible with a fair work from home policy.
Cons
Takeda was an amazing company when I started 10 years ago (then called Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company). The organization grew after Takeda took over, and it’s cohesive culture made coming to work fun. The people there were both hard working, but also had fun with plenty of events. Takeda as it is today is a completely different company. When it started to integrate the many small parts that made up Takeda (e.g. Millennium, Nycomed etc), they couldn’t seem to get their act together. My department alone went through 8 reorganizations over 10 years. The fun atmosphere, stable environment, and management transparency disappeared practically overnight. Now that Takeda has acquired Shire (it actually feels like the other way around to be honest), the integration has been horribly run. There’s been no transparency whatsoever. As part of the integration, people were put into new roles within the new organization. A lot of these placements made no sense, as employees were put in roles they were under-qualified for. I was handed a piece of paper with a new job title on it. My new role had little to do with my old position, nor do I have much experience in that part of the company. It felt almost like my name was pulled out of a hat. Alternatively, many well experienced people were left unassigned, and were told they didn’t map into the new organization. The new structure went into effect earlier this month. However, many of the folks who were not given roles in the new organization are still there without any end date, or clarity on their futures. They were basically told they weren’t placed, and that they were welcome to apply for new roles within the company. To my knowledge, there are still quite a few people there without any clarity on their futures. I think it’s a sad way to treat your people. Mergers, integrations, etc are stressful as it is......the lack of regard they’ve shown employees (some of whom were with Millennium from the beginning) is outrageous. All of this combined led me to want out of the company, and will be leaving in mid October. I hope they realize how much damage their HR strategy has been doing, and rectify it. I would love to see Takeda try and bring back some of the culture that made it a top rated place to work year after year. Until they do, the revolving door will keep spinning.
