Toxic culture at Budapest - Plant Engineer Sanofi Employee Review

1.0
Jun 27, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

History of hundred years with the pros of the socialism era: the happiest hut feeling with convergence against the actual topic or person. Not high but stable salaries, sufficient package - good for entry level. The protective mentality for the workers comes from the presence of the trade union. Standardized, appealing surface for outside. The high-performance staff does their best for everyday survival.

Cons

Sorry. I will be honest. If you are engaged with hungarian Sanofi with pink glasses on, consider never read my sentences! History of hundred years with the cons of the socialism era: culture was affected by capitalism, but remained the same. Company culture stops at company values posted in colorful posters in meeting rooms. The source of convergence is always against something or someone. This makes the athmosphere poisonous. Toxic people complain the most. The most complaining people get the most of the resources - compensation, respect, e.t.c. This is due to a bullying culture built by the chosen ones of the Hungarian management. In this culture, there is no carrier for you if you don't do favours. Silent well-performers are bullied to work better and more until they quit. There is a phenomemon of quitting young engineers. The management is full of conflicts, arguing with each other behind closed doors until nights. The base conflict comes from the "cost center" mentality of the French management. This means taking the profit out, but investing back under the minimum. Due to this, the state of the equipment park is amortizing heavily. This is helped by the workers' defiance - salary "rises" are constantly under the level of inflation. This led to striking. Sanofi is proud of its management, and managers do their best to cover the problems - solving them is out of scope due to the cost center mentality. There are heavy lacks in maintenance, failures cause defects in production. Workers mentality is not to prevent failures, but make them - this means free paid time for them, while their managers arguing with each other or simply waiting for maintenance... But if a manager is proud of his 40% cost savings in salaries, what to wait? Strict timetable of managers leads to endless senseless meetings, with productive times in the night. Work-life balance is heavily injured there, and the worst thing, that this is accepted as a standard! Computerized systems consume more manpower than they help. Lean culture made "failure as a value "- everyone looks for failures in the other one's work! Performance rating is total subjective - I got 0% raise after 100% completion.

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5.0
Feb 25, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits (9% 401k match, company car, solid insurance). Huge company with many therapeutic areas you can choose from. I like my coworkers.

Cons

Employee stock purchase plan is nice in theory, but stock has treaded water for many years. A very big company with lots of big pharma metrics to meet. Pay is maybe slightly below industry average.

3.0
Jul 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Extensive and active employee resource groups, strong leadership development opportunities, clear company mission, gig opportunities that support career development, strong employee support through the ombuds office and compliance help line, and stable company portfolio.

Cons

No work-life balance considerations with hybrid work model, contradictions in company mission compared to policies (i.e., target to reduce carbon emissions with employee commuting to office as one of the top 5 causes but yet still requiring employees to commute to office 3 days a week), some office sites are not conducive to in office productivity (not enough privacy or space), compensation package is not competitive for MA pharmaceutical companies, long-term incentives have almost no value once they are vested, health care benefits require employees to jump through hoops to maximize discounts or qualify for coverage of certain medications, and accountability for department leadership to follow the corporate leadership pillars is inconsistent across departments.

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