Applied Biological Materials Inc. Employee Reviews

- Gives you good experience in a biotech company especially if you're doing co-op- management is alright, they give feedback if needed- mornings are usually the busiest so need to manage time well

Pros

free breakfasts/pizza

Cons

no sick days

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Worse company ever

Research Assistant (Former Employee) - Richmond, BC - 30 March 2021

Do not apply to any job postings for this company. The CEO is ignorant and arrogant. He blames everyone for lack of communication when his English is difficult to understand and fires you the next day. You'll be wasting your time here even if the pay is good. The atmosphere and environment is so intense when the ignorant CEO is around. Everyone is afraid of that disrespectful CEO. DO NOT APPLY, I REPEAT DO NOT APPLY even if the salary is tempting. It's not worth the mental health that he abuses.

Pros

The coworkers

Cons

Everything else sucks. No fun. No events. Always work like slaves

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Insights into Applied Biological Materials Inc.

Based on 4 survey responses

Areas for improvement

Clear sense of purpose
Time and location flexibility
Support from manager

Terrible

Research Scientist (Former Employee) - Richmond, BC - 12 October 2020

You can work there only if you can't survive. Terrible experience. Worst management ever. They dont respect people, especially phd. They dont give you time to adapt to new environment. Most phd left within 1 year.

Pros

Free lunch

Cons

A lot

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Terrible company

Technician (Former Employee) - Richmond, BC - 20 July 2020

The work you do at abm is okay. It gives you essential lab skills and the experience you need to progress further into your career. The CEO has unrealistic expectations and is extremely rude and condescending. Talks down upon you as if you incompetent at everything. Further insults you that a high schooler can do this and that you can't. Talks badly about previous employees and say why they were weighing down the company. Says his time is wasted and that training was useless. Is unprofessional in the way he talks by treating you like you are garbage. Don't bother working here. Working at a minimum wage job is better than the bs you take here.

Pros

Everyone is really nice

Cons

- high turnover rate, toxic work evironment

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Your morals will be tested

Not quite top and not quite bottom (Former Employee) - Richmond, BC - 15 April 2020

I kid you not, the management eliminated three out of four sick days immediately prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. Yes that's correct - you were allowed to be sick for one day of the calendar year. Other Cons: - Constant public ridicule and derision of employees at company-wide meetings. This includes openly sharing employee salary information, threatening demotions or SALARY CUTS (is this legal?) for things like forgetting to turn a monitor off or overusing the printer, and general pitting of employees and departments against each other - General culture of shame, guilt and authoritative orders to achieve unrealistic annual goals (real example: 5x increase of output with 1/2 reduced team), promoting high turnover rates and not much else - Management replaces PhDs with BScs (or fails to hire new staff entirely) for high-level technical work, are then surprised when quality/quantity of output decreases. Their solution is to force these BScs to consult past employees who assist out of guilt but are not compensated by any means. - Must work exactly 9-5 (AKA you must use one of your ten full vacation days for a dentist appointment rather than leaving at 4:30 and coming in earlier to compensate like every office-based job at other companies) Pros: - The company hires pushovers that freely volunteer their time to work overtime/on weekends without getting paid. Pushovers are generally nice people to work with.

Pros

Friendly employees as everyone knows they're suffering together

Cons

Incompetent management, no WFH, no time adjustments

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Unsafe and unethical workplace

Research Assistant (Co-op) (Former Employee) - Richmond, BC - 29 September 2019

- lack of job security noticeable for interns and full-time employees - unethical and unsafe lab practices as well as unsafe disposal of lab materials - lab space was a warehouse, non-legit lab areas and equipment

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Worst company I have ever worked

Cell Culture (Current Employee) - Richmond, BC - 22 July 2019

If you have any other option, don't think about coming here. Poor management, high stress, high turnover rate and underpaid. New staff always start with catching up the backlog that the previous employee has left. Worst of all, the management will direct their employee to make up numbers on Certificates of Analysis when QC failed. They ship their products even they know it doesn't meet what customers have required and what customers have paid. Just because the customer has waited too long, they don't want to disappoint them, so they trick them. If I am one of the customers, I will not trust their results and will never buy any products from this company for sure.

Pros

Free lunch

Cons

Dishonest

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Acceptable, but needs work.

Adenovirus Team Lead (Current Employee) - Richmond, BC - 5 March 2019

Not a bad place to work, but needs to build up its base. Some aspects of biosafety are not up to code. Work hours are 9-5, meaning that you must be at work from 9-5. Often work will run over.

Pros

Free lunches

Cons

Long hours, frequent turn-over, frequent crisis, frequent changes in management from CEO

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Worst Company

Cell Culture Lab Technician (Current Employee) - Vancouver, BC - 9 January 2019

Working as a lab tech here is demanding and underpaid. The managers and staff are rude and condescending. Most people working here are already unhappy and the high turnover rate is a great indicator how poorly managed the company is

Pros

free breakfast

Cons

underpaid, overworked, micromanagement

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Fun working experience.

Co-op research assistant (Former Employee) - Richmond, BC - 24 February 2018

ABM is a biotech R&D company. I was doing most of the cloning experiment/ research there as a coop student. Learned a lot from Jun. The company organized monthly team building activities which I enjoyed the most.

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Jobs at Applied Biological Materials Inc.

See more jobs

Account Manager, Business Development

Richmond, BC

30+ days ago

Research Scientist - Cell Biology

High stress and underpaid

Cell culture technician (Former Employee) - Richmond, BC - 8 January 2018

It's fun at the beginning then it goes downhill fast after several months. It's a typical profit first, everything else second company. The benefit is minimal, lunch time is short, salary is below average, and there is feeling like everyone is faking how happy they are. This company is always hiring, and one would wonder why it's having a hard time retain skilled employees. They always hire fresh university grads to keep the cost down.

Cons

Below average pay, minimal benefits and vacation days, short lunch hours

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Great Place to Work

Executive Assistant (Current Employee) - Richmond,BC Canada - 25 July 2017

Very friendly and open-minded company. The company cares about every employee and is always trying the best to create a good working environment, such as providing extended health insurance, free breakfast and etc.

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Energetic,high efficient enviroment

molecular biology lab coordinator (Former Employee) - Richmond BC,Canada - 9 November 2015

Energetic and fast paced working environment. People are friendly and easy to work with. Abm is a small but rapidly expanding company so there are many opportunities to learn a variety of skills and techniques and to meet new people. You are expected to work hard but hard work is often generously rewarded. Schedule is strict and follows a typical 9-5 schedule.

Pros

Free lunch, lots of opportunities

Cons

High work load

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Happy to be a part of an incredible team at abm Inc.

Associate Director (Protein Science) (Current Employee) - Richmond, BC, Canada - 26 June 2015

abm is place where you can expect a perpetual cycle of leaning and application as the company truly keeps up with the latest in the world of science and technology. The company is founded on a philosophy that nurtures talent and offers flexibility over slotting into fixed career path(s). With a dynamic working environment, abm offers a lot of potential for overall professional development. At abm, everybody cares to pull more than their weight and which gets duly rewarded through bonuses and loads of fun activities (picnis/company trips) and gestures like free lunches/BBQs.

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Great workplace and friendly co-workers

Molecular Biology Assistant (Former Employee) - Rchmond, BC - 18 June 2015

I was working in ABM as a co-op student. That is my first co-op work term and I am very appreciated that my first lab related experience is with ABM! ABM is not a big company but I think that is very good for co-op students to learn new technique as a detailed training will be provided. ABM does provide a great, safe, and fun workplace to its emplyee and co-op students. Supervisors are very patient to teach you and give you advice. The most important thing is, there is no pressure to work in ABM! Sometimes there will be a lot of samples to be processed. Handling multiple tasks at a time could be the hardest part of the job. However, the co-workers are very nice. When they have time they always give you a hand. ABM also have monthly lunch and Halloween dessert party!! I am very enjoy the time in ABM. Really want to work as a full time employee after I graduate.