2022’s Top Employers provide safety, support, and success for scientists - Science

 When it comes to selecting an employer that will value their expertise, voice, and career goals, scientists use a specific metric: safety.

On the day of a critically important meeting that had been in the works for months, Gene Sullivan had a funeral to attend. When the chief product strategy officer at Insmed (No. 1), a global biotech company based in Bridgewater, New Jersey, learned of a death in his family that would compel him to miss the conversation, he emailed his boss, the CEO. Within minutes he received a response that elicited a sigh of relief: Don’t worry about the meeting at all, the email stated, we’ve got your back. His boss’s simple and caring response meant the world to Sullivan and is an emblem of Insmed’s dedication to its employees. “It’s reflective of the CEO, and a lot of our culture comes from him,” says Sullivan, noting that this wasn’t the only time he had observed this kindness. “When an esteemed researcher in our group was ill, the entire organization was bending over backwards to allow him to work when he could and give him the time he needed for medical treatments. I feel proud of this organization.”

Workplace pride is just one parameter scientists use to measure how much they appreciate their employer. In a world where companies have the capacity to behave unethically and uncompassionately and toss their best resource, human staff, to the side, it is gratifying to know there are companies that care, and that purposefully nurture an ecosystem that puts the needs of their team members first. For Science’s top employers—20 of the best worldwide companies as chosen by our readers—the culture of concern they create is one that stands by safety in every sense of the word. Scientists who invest their careers with an organization want to know that they will receive all manner of protection, be it mental, emotional, physical, and even familial, in good times and bad. And when they do, it becomes a point of pride and long–term devotion.

Since 2002, Science has been studying the best organizations in biotech, pharma, and biopharma as part of its Top Employers Survey, conducted by Cell Associates, LLC. In the spring of this year, the global survey was completed by over 6,200 respondents, just under one third of whom have a doctorate. 37% said they have been in the workforce for more than two decades, and over half work in some aspect of research and development. Additionally, while 64% of respondents reported that although they are established in their career, they are still moving upwards, only 19% stated they are likely to change jobs in the next year.

The top 20 companies were selected using a statistical process that calculates a unique ranking score for each company rated, notes the team at Cell Associates. Only organizations that were rated by 35 or more respondents were eligible to become part of the top 20 best employers. And looking at the survey results, it is clear that scientists demand and receive workplaces that respect and value them. As Cell Associates notes, “Organizations that are seen as innovative leaders in the industry, that respect their employees, that have loyal employees who are provided the autonomy of decision making they need to do their best, and that are socially responsible are selected as best in class.”

Safety = success

For scientists seeking professional advancement, safety encompasses many variables they use to select the right workplace, and top employers recognize this. For these employees, safety relates not only to protecting people, but also ideas and creativity. They want to know that if they suggest bold solutions to company problems, they will be well received and valued.

Before Hans Clevers, head of pharma research and early development at Roche (No. 14), based in Basel, Switzerland, transitioned into this role from that of board member, he spent 3 years visiting multiple company sites to ascertain what makes it tick. “It struck me that there are people who work for us for a long time,” the M.D./Ph.D. says. “There is enormous competence but there is a safe environment where they feel comfortable. I decided to take this job because of this experience. At Roche, we have a safe environment where everyone can express their ideas and opinions in their own way, without fear of negative consequences.” Indeed, “protecting people and the environment isn’t just a legal or social obligation, it’s integral to our operations,” Roche proudly declares on its website.

At Insmed, safety means comfort to employees, who know they can change direction and follow the science wherever it may go without fear of reprimand or repercussion. Lisa Nair, vice president of global quality assurance, recalls a project that her colleagues were tackling in the development pipeline. When a setback occurred, the leadership team welcomed it with open arms and a belief that this “failure” was fuel. “One of our C-suite executives asked, ‘How do we turn this into an advantage for our patients?’” she recalls. “This was a powerful message for the team of scientists and engineers working on the project. It changed their mindset. That [kind of] message from the top empowers the organization to think creatively and to put the patient at the forefront of our minds.”

Science as the North Star

Not surprisingly, science is a priority for science-educated talent when they consider their employment options. They want to know that there are robust investments in R&D infrastructure within their chosen companies. Top employers go above and beyond in this respect because they recognize the value of support for discovery: It leads to extremely positive outcomes for patients as well as recruitment and retention of talented scientists. John Lepore, senior vice president and head of research at the Brentford, UK location of global biopharma giant for GSK (No. 12), has been with the company for 16 years and loves being a member of a team that is so devoted to finding transformational medicines by unlocking the secrets of nature. “It’s a personally fulfilling career for me, and I have seen my own opportunities grow,” he says. “We’ve become a world leader in using genetics, genomics and the science of the immune system for identifying novel drug targets, enabled by technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning. We explore the science of immunology across all our different therapeutic areas. Because of the strength of the science and its potential in those areas, we have become a magnet for people.”

For Hanne Bak, senior vice president of preclinical manufacturing and process development at Regeneron (No. 3), the American biotech headquartered in Tarrytown, New York, science is prioritized because of its mission and familial ties—M.D./Ph.D. scientists launched and continue to lead this global force, which like many of the top employers, contributed to COVID-19 therapies or vaccines. “It may sound like something you put on a wall, but Regeneron is a science-first culture, founded by scientists who know the value of investing in science to solve problems,” she explains. Strategic business decision making are made by following the science, not the other way around.

Nimbleness of scientific and business systems is closely tied to innovation, and often leads to organizational success and better patient outcomes. A few years ago, Roche leaders decided that the traditional company structure with hierarchies was no longer appropriate for fostering innovation and initiated a transformation into a team-focused organization. “We removed layers, making things easier for our employees,” says Clevers. The teams are self-assembled, based on a need, gap, or problem that requires solving, and are naturally multidisciplinary. “People can assign roles to themselves on these teams. You don’t report to a boss. The team leader is like a coach and the team makes decisions collectively—it’s not in the hands of one person.” The results so far have been fabulous: “There is a sense that you have your fate in your own hands; there is much more emphasis on the individual career plan and the freedom that comes with teams,” he adds.

Other top employers have also ditched the standard corporate architecture of yesteryear, acknowledging that a more amorphous or flexible system more proactively engages and supports the birth of brilliant ideas, thereby encouraging creativity. Regeneron, for example, uses a matrix structure. Teaming arrangements at GSK are determined not by product line but by promising areas of scientific concentration and expertise. “We have a follow-the-science strategy for early discovery,” says Lepore. “We don’t only set out to say, ‘Let’s see if we can find targets in disease A, B, and C.’ We say, ‘Let’s look at the science and see what other diseases it could lead to.’ I am in a group that looks at particular immunological mechanisms, and the world is my oyster to determine where to apply this.” Given the preponderance of survey respondents referencing innovation, culture, flexibility, and empowerment, it seems likely that scientists will continue to crave a workplace that is as agile as they are.

Concentrating on culture

Top employers recognize that to attract top scientific talent, they need to create a space for creativity, exploration, and innovation, aspects that often mirror academic culture. After all, Ph.D. scientists are used to certain expectations of scholarly liberty and intellectual adventure from their time in higher education. For example, Roche’s scientists work on multiple projects that can extend beyond their normal job responsibilities. “We want to cultivate the freedom you see in academia,” says Clevers, who spent 35 years in academia and founded several startups. “This is baked into the organization. They have the freedom to try things out … We know innovation can come from anywhere.” Indeed, with half of Roche’s successful pipelines coming from collaborations with academia, startups, and mergers and acquisitions, there is an emphasis on novel partnerships, according to Clevers.

A laser-sharp focus on developing stronger patient interventions is a key characteristic of top employers, one that aids these organizations in their recruitment. “It gives us so much energy to apply our research to make medicines where we can help patients the most,” says Lepore. “A lot of our talent comes to us because they see a cultural element of being ambitious for patients. It’s in our DNA literally and figuratively to help patients with that drive and focus.” He shares the story of a colleague who was behind a key insight related to GSK’s contribution to a potential new treatment for hepatitis B. “She is one of the only people in the world who can figure out the mechanisms of this molecule [related to hepatitis B],” says Lepore. “She recently talked about losing her brother to complications of hep B and said she determined that GSK was the best place to focus her career to do this.”

An ecosystem that is punctuated by collegiality, collaboration, and community is one of the many reasons scientific staff stay with Novartis (No. 17), a pharmaceutical firm based in Basel, Switzerland, with early-stage research headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It’s awesome to come to work for the comradery and people and team approach to tackling science,” says Nicole Renaud, U.S. head of data science in chemical biology and therapeutics at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, whose Ph.D. is in human and statistical genetics. “People are so willing to share their craft and work together as a team. The culture is really curiosity driven, taking that ‘challenge accepted’ approach to drug discovery.”

Pharma and biotech firms spend a lot of energy, money, and time carefully considering how to actualize innovation. Strategic planning and board of directors meetings are often interspersed with questions about initiating official mechanisms that will spur teams to success. Innovation contests, formal discovery processes, and development devices that systemize the identification, cultivation, and funding of creative sparks and novel solutions, while in vogue, are not the only path to productivity. Some top employers rely more on the organic nature of internal collaboration and conversation, which often sparks creativity. “Those types of discussions are happening all the time every day,” says Bak. “So when you have those deep conversations, you don’t need innovation competitions. We don’t need something that is special to pull it out—it’s how we operate. It is woven into our DNA.” When her team was trying to exploit a mechanistic understanding of a certain attribute of a molecule and its impact on the manufacturing process, she didn’t have to wait for a team conclave or file a certain form to access the resources she needed—she simply reached out to colleagues in another corner of Regeneron. “I always marvel that when you ask people to help you or generate data for you, you get a yes,” she says. “You don’t have to seek approval or be within a budget. That’s part of why we can unlock [creativity].” Perhaps this flexibility in fostering innovation, untethered to a specific corporate apparatus, is partly why the company experienced a 14% increase in its workforce last year, according to Christina Chan, senior vice president of corporate communications and citizenship at Regeneron.

GSK is also organic, but it leverages an ingenious rewards system for its coolest ideas. The Transformational Medicine and Vaccines Awards Program doesn’t just honor “the person who last touched the medicine, but we go back in time to find the people who came up with the ideas and contributed to the key inflection points,” says Lepore. “We celebrate good thinking and good science.”

At Insmed, innovation is driven by a focus on unmet needs for treatments for rare diseases, something that requires a novel approach to problem solving. “There isn’t a well-trodden path, so innovation is a necessity,” says Sullivan. “We are forging new ground. The research group has a particular playground to explore, and they are given the freedom to try new things.” This freedom has enabled Insmed to cultivate bold improvements in everything from basic R&D systems and outcomes to preclinical analysis of compounds, and from designing effective trials to the interventions themselves. Innovation is “part of our core ethos,” adds Nair. “If you see a problem, you’re empowered to research that and socialize it and gain support for it. And [the solution] is supported as well.”

Devotion to diversity, equity, and inclusion

Lepore is very direct about what makes GSK attractive to talent: “Championing diversity is helping us tap into the best ideas,” he says. “All of us in senior leadership take it very seriously and have a profound recognition that people with diverse backgrounds enable the best ideas and contribute to the diversity of thought.” The biopharma powerhouse supports numerous diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. On the hiring front, they purposefully pursue diverse pools of candidates with established aspirations and progress incentives. GSK has a fellowship training program with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) like Howard University in Washington, D.C. The company also prioritizes clinical trial diversity.

Diversity also means implementing a different model of employee support, one in which the company molds to the staff’s unique needs, concerns, and challenges and not the other way around. In fact, top employers act proactively to protect and help their most precious resource: people. Nair recalls that the spouse of one of Insmed’s team members is a health worker who was deemed essential during the pandemic, obligating this person to work extra shifts. The family had a small child, and suddenly the situation at home became untenable. While the employee never mentioned their challenges, “we noticed them and said, ‘If this isn’t working for you, that’s no problem,’” she recounts. Her team offered multiple options, including working different hours and days and cutting back the schedule to unburden that employee. “It was very empowering, and you felt you were supporting a colleague and a friend in their personal journey.” It’s a standard scenario for pharma, which embraces a flexible work environment, knowing that when employees feel safe in that respect, they can provide better solutions. Some of Insmed’s employee work schedule improvements stem from its response to the pandemic, but most of the improvements are just a symbol of its makeup. “My team is a global team, and in order to support patients all over the world, we create an environment where people can have flexible work schedules to support themselves and their families,” says Nair.

Passion beyond profits

One of the most interesting data points of the survey is not directly related to science, patients, or profits, but to passion. It is not surprising that scientists position passion as a top metric for their choice of employers—after all, it is their passion to unveil the hidden corners of the universe that drives some toward science in the first place. At Roche, passion is explicitly part of their vision: “We foster a culture of respect, trust, and openness that helps us to bring our authentic selves into our work, develop genuine relationships, and pursue our passions,” says Clevers. And these passions take many forms. For scientists, it always starts with the science. “[Doing] the science is like being a kid in the candy store,” says Susan Moody of her experience as executive director and clinical program leader, translational clinical oncology, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. “There’s always so much cool, innovative work going on.” Also high on the list is the passion to help people. “There is a trust that we are working toward the common goal of helping patients who are suffering,” she adds.

2022 SCIENCE CAREERS TOP EMPLOYERS SURVEY METHODOLOGY

As has been done for several years, a white sheet describing the survey and project timeline was sent to both public relations and human resources contacts in the biotech and pharma industry in the AAAS database several weeks prior to launching the online survey. This annual web-based survey was conducted from March 15 through April 18, 2022.

There were several changes to this year’s survey, including the addition of three attributes that describe employers (having a decision-making process that continuously considers the sustainability of its processes and procedures, actively supports a diverse workplace, and takes deliberate action to include its’ employees in decision making that is appropriate for their responsibilities).

A mixed methodology was used again to recruit participants for this year's survey. The first part of this methodology included emailed invitations to roughly 40,000 individuals who were located worldwide; these individuals were AAAS members, Science website registrants, and Science Careers registrants. Several social media posts were also used to promote the survey. The second part of the methodology included several email blasts to approximately 225 human resource (HR) contacts at industry firms and biotech/pharma advertising agencies from the Science Careers sales database.

The total number of surveys was somewhat smaller this year compared to the past several years. This report is based on a total sample of approximately 6,200 completed surveys: 95% of these surveys were a result of the email campaign to HR contacts and advertising agencies, 4% were from the end-user campaign, and 1% were from social media efforts.

That’s not all. From encouraging more kids to go into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers to sponsoring community enterprises where companies give back and encourage their staff to do so as well, top employers fuel the passion that creates a loyal workforce. Regeneron’s employees are very engaged in the many causes the company supports, from the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair to volunteering for philanthropic endeavors. What originated as the firm’s Day for Doing Good has morphed from a one-day event to several week-long events, an annual concentration of activities that advance community nonprofits. “We look for people who have a deep purpose. It should be no surprise that we support equity and STEM education,” says Chan. “We take their engagement and continue to grow it. [Regeneron’s mantra,] ‘Doing Well by Doing Good,’ helps feed their souls beyond themselves, knowing that the company is willing to invest in them and their communities as well.”

Indeed, an investment in human resources development is often the one that produces the biggest return on investment. Top employees pursue a systematic approach to professional development and advancement. “We have always taken employee growth very seriously and our retention rates are very good,” says Nair. “It’s not just words on a paper—they are lived, breathed, and experienced every day, and it’s because of this that people stay at Insmed.” At GSK, scientists “come here because it’s an important place to build their career while making important medicines for patients, so it’s exciting and fun,” says Lepore. “But then we have to keep them here. We spend a lot of time in planning career paths. It’s a longitudinal discussion between managers and staff.”

Scientists looking for a job and a place to establish and grow their careers have a choice of employers. What ultimately drives that choice is not data, but rather a belief that the 40-plus hours per week they sacrifice is for the greater good, for both themselves and for patients, and that their employer is a sanctuary of science, clarity, and light, not an inferno of disrespect and dissonance. Science’s top employers are those that not only recognize the opportunity to shine brightly from a corporate citizenship perspective, but also embrace the chance to offer a secure and supportive environment to talented scientists who want to help their fellow humans.