To Leadership:
Ongoing communication issues and failures to deliver on promises in a timely and transparent manner have resulted in continued attrition, reduced morale and productivity, and employee burnout. We share your goal: the success of Invitae as a whole. However, the issues mentioned above and expounded on below hinder our collective success. To foster productive and transparent dialogue with Leadership about the problems we all face and how to fix them, we have drafted the following statement. Please take the time to read the concerns outlined within and seriously consider the suggested solutions.
Ideal situation
Ideally, all Invitae employees would be receiving compensation that is competitive with market rates and is internally consistent within the company. Company pay bands would be freely available and employees would have access to peer compensation data in order to ensure fair and equitable pay. Compensation adjustments would be subject to a defined process with specific timelines and role leveling would follow clearly established criteria. Changes to the aforementioned processes and procedures would be readily communicated by Leadership, and employees at all levels of the organization would have both public and private venues to relay their questions or concerns without fear of retribution. Any such questions or concerns would be regularly reviewed by Leadership and transparent responses would be disseminated to the affected parties within a reasonable time frame.
Reality
Earlier this year, numerous employees across engineering and bioinformatics were assigned levels via an ambitious and thorough process which aimed to 1) provide clarity around leveling expectations and 2) improve compensation equity. Although this exercise was largely successful in providing much-needed clarity, the associated compensation adjustments were only partially enacted, leaving numerous employees far behind market and peer compensation rates. In some individually-reported cases, this disparity between current and expected compensation (based on peer discussions) is in excess of 30%. Given that the most recent leveling exercise occurred on May 3rd, the delay for affected employees has now surpassed two months, while pay adjustments have already been made for peers that were leveled during the first exercise. For employees from the ArcherDx acquisition, significant pay discrepancies have been known since the acquisition in October 2020. There was a round of parity delivered in June 2021 (which was originally promised in February 2021), but many business partners have admitted to leads that it was not conducted to fairly increase pay relative either to industry or internally. In October 2021, ArcherDx leads were working to include their engineers as part of the first round of leveling. This was also abruptly ended by senior Oncology leadership, stating that it had not been factored into the 2021 budget. This message was communicated to the engineers by former software leadership. As such, the delay for those individuals to receive equitable pay has been known for, and is now nearing, 20 months. Communication regarding these delays has been severely lacking and no clear rationale has been shared with employees beyond hints that the adjustments are “stuck” in the financial budgeting process. Many employees have exhausted all identifiable methods to relay their concerns or to request additional information regarding this topic. Both ICs and leads have repeatedly raised concerns to their leads and business partners and multiple individuals have even resorted to directly messaging members of the executive team. In all of these cases, individuals have been met with continued silence or non-informative answers.
Consequences
The delay in pay adjustments and lack of communication from Leadership has become an extreme source of anxiety and frustration for numerous individuals across many teams. It extends well beyond just the affected individuals and is having major negative ramifications on overall morale and productivity. Given the repeatedly modified timelines for pay adjustments, individuals are feeling that they are being lied to or intentionally strung along and, due to the lack of communication from Leadership, leads are ill-equipped to alleviate their concerns.
Beyond the emotional distress caused by this situation, there are clear financial implications for both individuals and the company. For individuals, the sum of the missed compensation is increasing with each pay period that passes. Many of these individuals have expressed the importance of Invitae’s mission and in supporting their peers as justifications for enduring, but the expanding gap between their pay and the compensation that they should be receiving is becoming more difficult to ignore. They are here for reasons beyond compensation, but they cannot ignore blatant internal inequity, which has and will continue to contribute to the high level of attrition across the engineering and bioinformatics organizations. A specific example of this is the Boulder Oncology organization, which has experienced a roughly 50% attrition rate within the last six months. As an extended, long-lasting consequence, the attrition and known pay inequities are also making it nearly impossible for leads to backfill personnel for priority projects as increasingly negative reviews are circulated by word of mouth and in public forums (e.g. Glassdoor). These engineers are feeling incredibly isolated, burdened, and burnt out, which has led to further reductions in overall morale and productivity.
Proposal
Given the extent, severity, and urgency of the above situation, the need for direct and transparent communication between Leadership and engineers/bioinformatics at Invitae has become increasingly conspicuous. We believe that an honest and direct approach will help all parties to arrive at the most prudent resolution to the above problem. Obviously, immediately adjusting affected individuals’ compensation and providing back pay for the last two months to make them whole would be the ideal outcome; however, without a direct dialogue with Leadership, we are unsure if this timeline is feasible. If it is not, providing insight into the impediment, agreeing to a concrete timeline, and supplying affected individuals with the details of their expected compensation increases with assurances of back pay would go a long way in alleviating concerns. Furthermore, special consideration should be given to members of the ArcherDx acquisition given that they were promised equitable compensation roughly 20 months ago following the acquisition.