ALS
Happiness score is 51 out of 100
3.0 out of 5 stars.
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ALS Employee Reviews for Analyst

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Job Title
Analyst18 reviews
Location
Canada18 reviews

Ratings by category

3.1Work-life balance
2.9Pay & benefits
2.6Job security & advancement
2.8Management
3.0Culture

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Found 18 reviews matching the searchSee all 506 reviews

Poor management

Indeed featured review

The most useful review selected by Indeed
This place is a complete chaos, they don’t order supplies on time and then expect workers to work hard, that lab is a mess with no sign of any cooling system for summer, (if you like super humid weather then this is the best place for you). They over hire in summer only to layoff 50% of them later on. Career advancement in based on if the manager “likes” you or not. Pay is not that good (which isn’t news anymore) Most of the department managers are egoistic and rude. Avoid if you can, or come join the Chaos

Pros

Can’t think of any

Cons

Too many to list
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Horrible Place to work

The management at ALS is horrible and they treat their employees like absolute garbage. I would recommend never working at this place and to avoid it like the plague. Staff that have been there for years have never received a raise. It is very difficult to become permanent unless you are a supervisors favorite. Senior staff come and go as they please because they won't get laid off. You are expected to do crazy amounts of work and rush through it because they are understaffed and refuse to hire help to save money, even during the busy seasons. They keep lots of staff as casual so they don't have to give you benefits, sick days or vacation days and you are easily expendable.

Pros

Nothing

Cons

Under paid, long hours, under staffed, horrible supervisors and management
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Official response from ALS

6 March 2021
Thank you for your thorough and detailed review. Working in a seasonal industry does present its challenges. We do our best to staff up for peak season but mirroring staffing levels with increasing sample volumes is a tough balance to achieve. When you factor in the training time for new staff, it is understandable that stress levels get elevated. It is true that we hire seasonal employees on as casual and have recently implemented a more structured process to convert long term casual employees to full-time so they can get benefits. I don't know how long you were with ALS, but we do provide structured wage increases every year (except last year because of the business impact caused by Covid). We appreciate your feedback and wish you the best in your future career!

Ok for a temp job

The pay is fairly low even for specialized positions in the lab. It is an OK place to work at if you need a temp job but most people don't stay there for more than a year because the pay is so low.

Pros

Not too stressful

Cons

Poor pay, lack of advancement
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Official response from ALS

24 June 2020
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. Because our work is so seasonal, we do recruit temporary employees at an entry level wage. For employees who remain with ALS, we offer regular wage increases and career development opportunities so they can expand their skill set and grow their careers. We do appreciate your feedback and wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Safety is not a priority

If you're looking for lab experience keep looking...ALS Burlington is just a dysfunctional black sheep in an otherwise good company. You will be on a contract basis forever, hours will be cut when production slows down, management doesn't care about safety AT ALL. Coworkers are good but mostly miserable and looking for alternative employment.

Pros

Benefit package is good- IF you can get full time

Cons

Management is TERRIBLE
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Official response from ALS

15 April 2019
Thank you for your comments. We appreciate the feedback and will look in to the situation further.

good

good workplace, good co workers. average pay. good location and training is good. good progress willing to teach. hours can be long with shift work and management is good

Pros

good people

Cons

long hours
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Good entry-level experience - not much else

Good atmosphere, loved the people I worked with. Management, however, was impersonal, condescending, and couldn't care less for you as a person. Poor scheduling led to longer than 8 hour days. Training was minimal and sink or swim. The wages weren't worth the pressure and accountability placed on you not only to ensure quality but to keep up with ambitious turn-around times. As a casual employee you will work the same hours, manage the same insane workloads, and receive less training than the vets, and yet receive none of the bells and whistles that ALS claims makes them a great company to work for - and when things get tight for the lab (due to administrative negligence), you will be the first to go. I'd love to recommend it as a great place for recent grads to get some entry-level experience, but unfortunately my experience here left me with a bad taste for the lab life.

Pros

Co-workers

Cons

Management
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Official response from ALS

30 October 2018
The unfortunate reality of our industry is that our work is highly seasonal and can escalate quickly. This means that workloads often increase faster than our ability to recruit and train up enough employees. We do realize that this can create pressure on employees, particularly those who are still learning their jobs. We always have an eye on continuous improvement and will continue to look at ways to improve our recruiting, onboarding and training processes. Thank you for your comments, we appreciate hearing all feedback whether it be positive or an area of improvement.

Do what you can to not work here

With Thunder Bay being so small it's hard to get good laboratory work expierence. Management knows this and they use this knowledge to treat their employees poorly because they have no other options. If what your looking for is poor pay, bad management, no job security and a mental health crisis - look no further than ALS Thunder Bay. Don't work here if you're a student, have a family or have self respect- you will not have a work life balance and ALS makes their scheduals more complicated than they need to be and will poorly accommodate you. After years of quality service I was laid off and management did not give me the courtesy of a good bye. Thank you ALS you did a good job at making a young person so cynical about having a career in this field. If this is what my future holds I want no part in it. Staff that isn't management was great and very friendly. Work was fun, when you didn't think about how much money you make or how poorly the company treats its employees.

Pros

Free counselling

Cons

Management, pay, job security, no work life balance, not accommodating to scheduals
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Bad all around

Staff have no work life balance at ALS. Don't work here if you have a family, are a student or have any self respect. Job is low paying for the accountable work you are actually putting out. People were continuously written up under unreasonable excuses and eventually fired because management wanted them out. Management is also secretive and everything is "hush hush" when it comes to staff schedualing or shift changes. Job was fun though, too bad they ruin staff motivation. ALS as a whole cares more about cost cutting initiatives than staff and quality laboratory products.

Pros

Free coucelling

Cons

Management, pay, work life balance, job security
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productive good work environment

Great place to work, but it is shift work and rotating shift work so everyone needs to work overnight shifts. If it was not for the overnight shifts I would have stayed.
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Management is not good. Don't really get paid for the amount of work you do. Don't appreciate your work .

Management is not good. Don't really get paid for the amount of work you do. Don't appreciate your work .Some co-workers are nice.
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Good entry level company

Not much room to grow, and you can't expect to earn more than $20/hr, but it's good for work experience. Most of the staff are new graduates looking for experience and a good reference. Sometimes they stick around, but usually get tired of the high volume workload and short (usually un-realistic) deadlines and leave for higher paying/more rewarding jobs.

Pros

You get to meet lots of people and get hands on experience performing many tests

Cons

The salary starts at minimum wage for laboratory assistant (required Degree or college diploma).
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ALS removed all negative reviews from indeed

But don't worry, you can still go to Glass door. Companies can't remove reviews from there. ALS has destroyed several labs globally that they had taken over simply because they will not allow people to continue doing jobs the way they know works in their field and in their market.

Pros

none

Cons

worst managed contact lab ever.
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terriable management

Even scientist and supervisors are less knowledge persons. can't answer the client question. Bad service-------------

Pros

no

Cons

increase wage only 20-40 cents for most employee, only some have good relationship with supervisiors can get more wage
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Great place to start but low pay

After almost 20 years, being layed off was upsetting. It is a great place to start, but the starting pay is not very good and the pay increases aren't that great either. I did get a lot of experience while there. There is a lot of opportunity for overtime and the other workers treat you good. I did make a lot of lifetime friends. It seems like lately they like to lay off all the long time employees. The enjoyable parts of the job was making new friends and learning new aspects of chemisty. The work/home balance was off scale with most of my time being at work.

Pros

Paid benifits, great people to work with.

Cons

Management does not listen to employees, low pay
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Worked with some amazing people.

The best part about the job was the positive enviroment. Great boss and very nice co-workers. I loved the freedom i had, i could work at my own pace. As long as i got my tests finished at the end of the day. I was able to think and learn.

Pros

BBQ each month

Cons

no water bottles aloud in lab (to be expected)
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Low Moral and Lack of Management Support

Lab was poorly managed. Staff that were not qualified ( high school grads or less) allowed to analyze samples and approve data with no supervision or peer review. Very low morale among staff. Lab was very dirty. No training for staff and major safety issues not addressed. This is a terrible place to work.

Pros

Good hours

Cons

Lack of qualified staff and management support. Very poor work environment.
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Not great

The workers were nice and easy to get along with, but management was horrible. Terrible at scheduling, made lots of errors etc. One particular person in middle management is hated by pretty much everyone outside of her 'inner circle' so to say, as she basically overlooks everyone outside of said circle and treats them horribly.Despite what they say about guaranteed hours after the probationary period, the lack of union allowed them to lay off workers that have been there for years, with absolutely no notice. In fact, the only warning given was the day of said layoffs, and that was an invitation to a meeting 15 minutes earlier. Unless management changes, don't work here.Pay is also obscenely low, about what one could have made in a typical job not requiring a degree. Training is non-existent, as they seem to prefer the 'throw them to the wolves' method, and hope that you can keep up with the ridiculous demand.

Cons

horrible management
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Good job with great people.

The typical day at work involved analyzing several hundred samples with the ICP-MS instruments, along with optimizing the instruments to optimal performance levels. I learned how to troubleshoot the instruments as well as the standard operating procedures for the instruments. My supervisors were very helpful, taught me well, and great people to work under. My coworkers were likewise great people to work with, and very helpful as well. The hardest part about working there was readjusting every week to the graveyard schedule. The most enjoyable parts of working here were my coworkers, the busy schedule, and the constant opportunities to learn.
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Overall rating

Based on 506 reviews

Ratings by category

3.1 out of 5 stars for Work/Life Balance
2.9 out of 5 stars for Salary/Benefits
2.6 out of 5 stars for Job security/advancement
2.8 out of 5 stars for Management
3.0 out of 5 stars for Culture

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