The challenge of retaining talent in life sciences, not least in safety and regulatory fields, has arguably never been higher up the list of industry conversation topics than now. This is particularly the case as younger professionals’ ambitions for a broad base of experience conflict with companies’ needs to hang onto the expertise they have invested in. The challenge is acute in safety/quality and regulatory areas. Here, companies’ ability to achieve and retain the optimum depth of skills and experience is continuously threatened by employees’ ambitions to build rounded CVs, and keep their work interesting - by trying out a range of roles.
The issue appears to be universal, too, judging by the wide spectrum of comments at the recent FT Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference in London, UK. The event, last November, saw attendees from both sides of the Atlantic venting their concerns and suggesting new approaches to addressing the talent shortfall – and more specifically the risk of skilled practitioners moving on, once they perceived themselves to be maturing in their experience and value.
More modest-sized biotech companies seem particularly affected, unable to match the salaries and ‘on-paper’ benefits of the global pharma giants. Too often, these smaller firms are giving new graduates a good grounding in pharmacovigilance for instance, only for a larger brand to poach them and capitalize on all that experience. The biotech firm takes the new graduate straight from college, fast-tracks them to the point of being useful to the company, only for a larger rival to woo them with a senior version of the role, and a 20% hike in salary.
Innovating with Working Conditions
Certainly, the life sciences industry needs to come up with new and creative ways to foster and hold on to rising talent. Although it isn’t necessarily useful to generalize about the career priorities of ‘Millennials’ as a single category of employee, it is important to recognize that there has been a shift in values among new graduates/ those in the earlier stages of their working life. For instance, while younger employees may be ambitious for a range of different experiences, they are reputedly less influenced by salary than previous generations. Freedom to explore, create, innovate and experiment at work are often among their personal priorities, along with the ability to protect their work-life balance – which may mean being able to apply for extended periods off work to fulfill extra-curricular ambitions, work from home, or have more control over their working hours.
Speaking to Forbes in the US in 2019, a leading recruitment agency spoke of the expanding definition of work ‘flexibility’ among younger people, noting that it includes “all types of part-time work, including compressed hours, flexi-time and job-shares, remote working - anywhere outside of a standard office environment - and freelance, contracting and portfolio careers;” as well as “agile working practices in larger firms, output-based contracts and virtual teams, where team members are based in different locations.” And, increasingly, the standard five-day working week is coming up for discussion.
All of this means that employers need to start thinking differently about how they appeal to younger demographics, and keep them interested.
This plays to the strengths of biotech firms, which may not be able to match the eye-watering salaries offered by higher-profile brands – but are more agile and dynamic in structure and culture, and better able to offer more flexible terms, as well as the chance to shadow and try out different roles. Large monolithic corporate entities are much less well equipped to bend to the evolving demands of the workforce. They may be able to pay people well, but they are less adept at preventing career fatigue and role-related boredom. Research by Gallup suggests that the high/rapid turnover of younger employees costs the US economy $30.5 billion annually.
Being able to think outside of the box, and re-emphasize some of these cultural advantages, will become increasingly important then, as life sciences firms review their recruitment and talent development strategies.
While filling regulatory roles continues to be a challenge across the industry, pharmacovigilance (PV) is arguably a more acute issue because the responsibilities are more involved. PV as a discipline is a moving target, for instance: new safety risks are emerging all the time; as are new means of locating and identifying them. PV positions also require applied experience: the ability to understand whether a safety signal is significant or not, amid all the real-world market feedback. The people who can do this well – with or without the help of advanced technology – are few and far between. Good senior regulatory people, by contrast, are relatively easy to find.
All of this means that firms need to think laterally about how they build and maintain their PV capabilities.
Listening to What Professionals Need
Our own organization has been burned in the past, where large CROs or pharmaceutical companies have swooped in and picked up people we have invested in training and developing – leaving us with only their eight-week notice period to replace not just a skilled individual, but also that person’s understanding of our processes, our systems, our culture, and so on.
This is unfortunate - for the employee too. Flattered by more senior sounding roles and bigger pay packets, these professionals haven’t always found their expectations met at their new employer: more likely, they may find their wings clipped and their roles reduced to within quite narrow parameters. Meanwhile, their new seniority belies their limited experience, so that they may feel out of their depth and ill-prepared for the higher responsibility they are now faced with.
No one is well served by this state of affairs. The risk to the wider industry is that the mismatch between demand and supply is artificially inflating salaries and making good people prohibitively expensive. Quality, meanwhile, is threatened as junior PV professionals are elevated above their skill and experience level. Meanwhile no one is benefiting from the true seniority that is really needed in this significant and complex field.
The answer is for firms to go back to the drawing board; to rediscover what motivates new graduates and younger recruits – other than money. In our own company, we had to draw a line and acknowledge that trying to match 20-50% salary hikes that larger industry players are offering is unsustainable. Rather than try to meet unrealistic remuneration terms, we play to our strengths: providing a culture that people want to be part of; and offering the chance to work from home – where a larger corporate culture might not allow this because of an over-zealous approach to locking down its IT systems.
Balancing the age/maturity of a company’s talent is important, too – so, if Millennials are prone to getting itchy feet within 1-2 years, there are already experienced, senior PV staff to cover any gaps. Balancing the demographics also gives younger professionals the chance to shadow mentors; not just in their own field, but in neighboring disciplines -to broaden their experience and take advantage of a more holistic opportunity to grow. So if someone comes out of university with a Pharmacy degree without being quite sure of the career route they want to take, they have an opportunity to feel their way into different areas before committing to specialization.
Encouraging Valued Staff to Have a Say
Something else that workplace newcomers tend to rate in employers is the ability to make a difference, be heard, and have access to the latest tools and techniques. Smaller firms – biotech, or service providers – can provide more of an entrepreneurial environment: one that fosters innovation, supported by structure.
It isn’t just younger members of the team that appreciate this; those in their 40s, who might otherwise find themselves in a career rut, can relish the chance to broaden their horizons, push boundaries and try something new, so that they keep evolving and expanding their own skills and experience. (At Arriello, we have a pot of cash set aside for process improvements and technology-enabled transformation, triggered by ideas from front-line team members. This gives people a sense of inclusion and buy-in, via the ability to see their ideas through. From the automation of international medical literature screening, to speech-enabled case reporting, we have taken these proposals and run with them, which has been thrilling for those responsible and kept them motivated and engaged.)
The talent gap in our industry is unlikely to close any time soon, but it’s through new thinking that modest-sized organizations will succeed in overcoming skill shortfalls. The other option, of course, is to talk to partner service partners about how they might help fill any vacancies, or provide additional opportunities for valued employees to rack up new and broader experience across a diverse range of roles and remits.
References
- Flexible Working: The Way Of The Future, Forbes, May 2019
- Millennials: The Job-Hopping Generation, Gallup
Author Biography
Alan White is CEO of Arriello, a specialist global provider of innovative, high-impact market access, regulatory affairs & pharmacovigilance solutions and services for pharma and biotech firms primarily in Europe and North America. [email protected].