Special Report:
By Jeff Mackey
Surveying
the Biotechnological HR Landscape First-of-its-kind employee survey of Canada’s biotechnology industry brings future of industry into focus
H
igh speed photography is a challenge even for the most talented of photographers. This is because when things move fast they can be difficult to capture—even for a snapshot. Human Resource (HR) professionals in rapidly expanding industries, like the biotechnology and life science industries, face a similar problem. How can you capture and understand that which is constantly moving and changing? For photographers the answer has to do with shutter speed and aperture. For HR departments, on the other hand, the answer has everything to do with people. What do the people in these industries think about their work? Where do they think trends are heading? How can the industry be improved? October/November 2015 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS
Special Report:
the Biotechnological HR landscape in Canada
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace
In hindsight these are easy questions to answer. However, if you’re building a business plan for a biotechnology start-up, or even if you’re changing the direction of a major pharmaceutical company; you need to know where the industry is going; not where it was five years ago. That is why employee surveys are relied on for valuable insights. By talking to the people in the trenches you can gain valuable perspective about where the industry is currently and, more importantly, where it’s going. “What you have right now is employers looking for talent and recent grads looking to break into the industry but they don’t know where to go. It’s a serious problem,” said Janet LeClair, Senior HR Consultant with Stratford Managers Corporation. That’s why the Stratford Managers Corporation partnered with Biotechnology Focus to conduct the Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace survey. The survey, which was conducted online, was filled out by 161 respondents from eight provinces and territories. This survey will be used as an early benchmark for follow up surveys in the future on the same topic. “We were trying to reach any employee who was working in Canada in biotechnology or life science sector organizations,” said Dean Fulford, Vice President of HR Consulting with Stratford Managers. “In order to spread the word, Biotechnology Focus engaged with their network of associations across Canada who agreed to distribute the survey to their membership. We started a bit of a social media campaign to share the process about the survey, both Stratford and Biotechnology Focus.” Given a choice, respondents were allowed to fill out the survey anonymously, to allow for more honest and frank answers. “We saw this as an opportunity for employees in the sector to BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS October/November 2015
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace
provide some feedback on their experiences working in biotechnology and life sciences,” said Fulford. “We had hoped as well that this would spur some positive activity in those organizations to improve their human resource processes.” “Ultimately the survey process would provide us a base line for the workplace experience aspect, and ultimately contribute toward developing recognition of best employers’ practices for the sector,” he continued. The survey found that generally people were pretty happy within the biotechnology field. In aggregate, employees rated the key indices, of Job Clarity, Organization Climate, Visionary
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace Index Performance
Special Report:
the Biotechnological HR landscape in Canada
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace Response by Index
Leadership and Recognition and Reward as providing a “Strong Performance” in the industry. “We asked 25 questions on the survey about different aspects of the work environment in biotech and life science workplaces. The goal was to build awareness of the employee’s perception of the work environment and their ability to impact the things that affect their productivity,” said Fulford. Job Clarity, an index which scored 77 out of 100, is about whether employees understand their job requirements and how they contribute to organizational success. Organizational Climate, an index which scored a 72, has to do with the design aspects of the organization and job that empower employees to be most effective. The Recognition and Reward index, which scored the lowest with a 67 out of 100, looks at how an organization recognizes employee contributions with available organizational resources. Finally Visionary Leadership, an index which scored a 71, has to do with focusing effort and developing commitment toward achieving the organization’s mandate. “Generally employees were saying that there are some strong
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace Response by Index
practices in their organization, but there are also some specific areas where the organizations can improve,” said Fulford. For example, the Job Clarity index, the highest scoring index for the industry, found that 84 per cent of employees ‘Strongly Agree’ and nine per cent of employees ‘Agree’ with the statement that “I can generally decide for myself the best way to get my work done.” In many other industries the responses are far more distributed. On the other hand, employees possibly found that the often security-centric nature of the industry a barrier to sharing information, with only 42 per cent of respondents ‘Strongly Agreeing’ that “Information and knowledge are shared openly within this organization.” Unfortunately, this finding might be par for the course when it comes to the biotechnology industry. “One area that the survey respondents highlighted was having their organization invest in their continuous development and learning,” said Fulford. “This would be where organizations make a commitment to allowing employees to develop abilities within their roles as well as providing support for developing skills that they may need in the future.”
“The number one thing that the organizations are doing well at is employees are saying they are empowered to do their jobs in the best way they know how. Job empowerment is another top driver of employee engagement and demonstrates a high level of trust exists in the organization. Those are both really important elements of a high-performing organization.” — Dean Fulford, Vice President of HR Consulting with Stratford Managers Corporation October/November 2015 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS
Special Report:
the Biotechnological HR landscape in Canada
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace Response by Index
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace Response by Index
“More than one quarter of survey respondents list learning and development as one of their top factors of engagement, yet almost one in four don’t agree that their organization is investing in this area. This is a powerful set of responses when looked at together,” he continued. “When I say the word engagement; that is when [employees] give their commitment to the organization’s success and not just success in their own jobs,” said Fulford. “The importance of great leadership is often the number one employment engagement driver identified by employees. Allowing employees to understand how their work contributes towards senior management’s strategy can be an area for improvement.” But biotech organizations are doing many things right, as well. “The number one thing that the organizations are doing well at is employees are saying they are empowered to do their jobs in the best way they know how,” said Fulford. “Job empowerment is another top driver of employee engagement and demonstrates a
high level of trust exists in the organization. Those are both really important elements of a high-performing organization.” Employee engagement was a special focus of the survey, and Fulford is considered the employee engagement specialist within Stratford Managers. “If people are highly engaged they tend to be most productive, they get more done. They tend to be more committed (and less likely to leave the organization) and they are more active in the organization, meaning they initiate activity to improve workflow, customer satisfaction and other factors,” said Fulford. “If you have weak engagement you tend to see higher workplace attrition and less employee productivity.” In all, 19 different organizational activities were reported as being important to employees in the survey as engagement drivers. The top five most important engagement drivers were: flexible work schedules, strong leadership from senior management, professional development opportunities, rewards for performance,
BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS October/November 2015
Special Report:
the Biotechnological HR landscape in Canada
and challenging employees with greater responsibility or increasing the variety of their tasks.
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace
Senior-level respondents and demographics
The demographics of the respondents for the Stratford Managers Corporation proved interesting. “A large number of people who responded have been with the organization for more than ten years,” said Dean Fulford, Vice President of HR Consulting with Stratford Managers. “That shows they have been in business for a long period and they want to see their organizations improve so they can take it to the next level.” Fulford pointed out that, generally speaking, employees with up to five-years of experience increase engagement with their organization, many of those with more than five-years in one organization plateau their engagement, and at 10-years people are either highly committed to the organization and increase engagement—or they check out and engagement drops. “Because there is such a high level of senior-level people that responded shows that there are a lot of people in this industry that still want to see their industry grow.”
Where the industry goes next
Janet LeClair, is a Senior HR Consultant with Stratford Managers Corporation. She believes that a survey like this can have longterm effect on the biotechnology and life science industries. “It’s exciting, this is innovation, it’s Canada’s future,” said LeClair. “Why we think employee engagement is important in the bio and life science sector is because the sector is still developing,” said LeClair. “So we want to get information from the employees about the work, we already know from the employer how hard it is to get set up and commercialize, but we haven’t heard much from employees on their challenges.” By entrenching a regular employee survey into the industry many, from individual HR professionals all the way to executive boards, will be able to make decisions empowered with vital information about their employees and their industry.
“What I get excited about is that this survey will be the benchmark going forward and there is a lot that can be done going from this point,” said LeClair. “From a career development perspective it’s a great start, we want to get to the point where we have a clear outlook of the options in this sector, because right now some of these jobs are so new that the kids out there don’t even know about them.” Companies in Canada will now be able to create the preconditions to attract and keep great talent in the biotechnology industry because, unlike in some other markets, the industry will be aware of how it can improve. “There are really small companies who don’t even have HR,” said LeClair. “Then there are the huge pharma companies and research institutes, so overall it’s a unique sector.” “[This survey] kicks starts these small companies into thinking about HR.” she continued. “Too many people believe that as the
“Why we think employee engagement is important in the bio and life science sector is because the sector is still developing. So we want to get information from the employees about the work, we already know from the employer how hard it is to get set up and commercialize, but we haven’t heard much from employees on their challenges.” — Janet LeClair, Senior HR Consultant with Stratford Managers Corporation
October/November 2015 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS
Special Report:
the Biotechnological HR landscape in Canada
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace
industry goes; the talent will just be there, but that often isn’t the case.”
(63 per cent) or ‘Agreed’ (23 per cent) with the statement. However, it would appear that biotech workers do not feel they receive the feedback they need to do their jobs better. Only 42% of respondents ‘Strongly Agree’ with the statement “I receive constructive feedback from my manager that helps me improve my contribution at work.” While 18 per cent of respondents ‘Disagreed’ or ‘Strongly Disagreed’ with the statement.
By the numbers: Organizational Climate
Nurturing a strong Organizational Climate, which are the design aspects of the organization that empower employees to be most effective, can be a tricky thing. It can be difficult to accommodate different personalities, perspectives and professional objectives that have all been bottled into a single organization—sometimes a single cubicle. The key to a good Organizational Climate is the development of good relationships through frequent and honest feedback, understanding and strong communcation skills. Despite the biotech stereotype of being impersonal or overlyacademic, it would appear that the industry actually has a fairly strong Organizational Climate. Only nine per cent of respondents to the Employee Opinion Survey disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “This organization cares about the health, safety and well-being of its employees while at work.” While it would of course be better to see this number lower than nine per cent, the industry can take heart at the fact with 86 per cent of respondents ‘Strongly Agreed’
By the numbers: Recognition and Reward
The results of the survey found that while the biotechnology industry fared well in satisfying the productivity factors important to its employees, one area of improvement might be in Recognition and Rewards. Though this index still received a ‘Strong Performance’ rating by survey respondents, it was the worst performing of all indices in the study. Only 44 per cent of respondents ‘Strongly Agree’ that their organization invests in their continuous learning and development while 25 per cent either ‘Disagree’ or ‘Strongly Disagree.’ This is not ideal for an industry that relies on the creation of new ideas and retaining talented workers. Continuous learning is a driver of employee engagement, and
“More than one quarter of survey respondents list learning and development as one of their top factors of engagement, yet almost one in four don’t agree that their organization is investing in this area. This is a powerful set of responses when looked at together.” — Dean Fulford, Vice President of HR Consulting with Stratford Managers Corporation
BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS October/November 2015
Special Report:
the Biotechnological HR landscape in Canada
high engagement drives commitment. Talent can be retained and attracted with a focus on professional development as recognition for contribution, as opposed to a line item in your budget.
A closer look: Job Clarity
According to the survey, the Job Clarity index in the biotechnology industry “increases with organization tenure, indicating an improved awareness of job impact to organizational success and improved capability to use judgment to complete work at the expected level of contribution.” Job Clarity “is strongest in organizations with less than 100 employees alluding to increased access to relevant information for their work and more awareness of the direct impact of individual contribution to organization success.”
A closer look: Visionary Leadership
According to the survey, the Visionary Leadership index in the
Employee Opinion of the Biotech Workplace
biotechnology industry is “weaker in organizations with more than 100 employees, likely indicating an increased expectation of senior leadership to drive organizational success. This is aligned with employees in the same size organizations having relatively less awareness of their own contribution to organization success.”
A closer look: Recognition and Reward
According to the survey, the Recognition and Rewards index in the biotechnology industry is “consistent across all age and tenure categories, however senior level employees with greater than 15 years of experience report strongest results.” Performance of this index is significantly weaker for employees in manufacturing roles, possibly indicating less satisfaction with personal development opportunities and less recognition for contribution.”
A closer look: Organizational Climate
According to the survey, the Organizational Climate index in the biotechnology industry is “weaker for employees in the 6 to 10 year tenure range, indicating a point where employees are increasing their expectation of their organizations (more involvement, more feedback, better tools). This is after years 1 to 5 where employees are still learning, and followed by tenure of 11 or more years where employees have ‘settled in’ and their organization expectations have often plateaued.” They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The health and future of your organization, on the other hand, is priceless. It would be wise to take heed of this survey, engage your employees and start preparing for the future of the industry—put your success into focus before it slips out of frame.
To see this story online visit www.biotechnologyfocus.ca/surveying-thebiotechnological-hr-landscape/ October/November 2015 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS
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