Retaining Life Sciences Talent
Soāyou’ve attracted great candidates, you’ve put applicants through a fine-tuned selection process, your onboarding goes smoothly, and development plans are in motion. Things are humming. But the real key for many organizations is the ability to keep talent on board for the long haul. According to Boston Consulting Group, companies that successfully onboard and retain talent have 2.5x the revenue growth and 1.9x higher profit margins compared to their competitors. Hiring people is expensive. Turnover is hard (and often begets more turnover). So we hope you’re still with us because we saved the best for last.
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50 Tips for Building Life Sciences Teams
Field-tested insights and best practices for navigating the talent journey, from attraction to retention
Provide external coaching opportunities
Offering your employees to work with a leadership coach is not just about performanceāit’s about showing them you are invested in them by providing the opportunity for greater self-awareness, well-being, and meaningfulness. Offering this type of opportunity can have a lasting effect on employeesā commitment to your organization.
Support a healthy work-life balance
A healthy work-life balance is crucial for long-term retention. Beyond flexible work arrangements, make sure workloads are realistic and encourage employees to take advantage of their PTO and vacation time. Promoting and modeling this balance within your organizationāand implementing specific programs and policies to promote itāhelps prevent burnout and fosters a culture where employees feel valued for both their contributions and well-being.
Share the wealth
While short-term monetary rewards, namely bonuses, are a great way to recognize and reinforce performance, they tend to lose their impact over time as they become more of an expectation. At some point, tenured employees will begin to think more about long-term wealth-building. This is where long-term incentives, such as stock programs and profit sharing, can provide more meaningful opportunities for tenured employees to feel their long-term effort is appreciated and appropriately rewarded.
Allow for more autonomy and power
While appreciated, monetary rewards are not the end-all, be-all for employee motivation. Self-determination theory teaches us that what truly motivates individuals is personal and psychological growth, a key part of which is autonomy. We all need this in our work, especially as our careers progress, so make sure you are providing the space for it to grow.
Give opportunities for job crafting
Job craftingāwherein you allow employees to design new roles or modify existing rolesācan be a great way to allow for greater autonomy. It can also promote innovation across your organization, potentially uncovering powerful roles, processes, and insights that otherwise would have gone undiscovered.
As we like to say:
Culture is built by people.
And runs on talent.
Let individual contributors continue to contribute
The opportunity for a leadership role is an important goal for some workers, but it’s not for everyone. Some are happy with the straightforwardness and predictability that comes with being an individual contributor; some simply don’t enjoy managing others, or recognize that it’s not a strength of theirs. Point being: know that some people will not be interested in a managerial role and make sure you have a track for them to continue to find meaning and purpose in their work.
Look for mentorship opportunities
Wasn’t this in the last section? It was indeed, but on the flip side. While pairing new hires with mentors is a great way to help new team members integrate into the organization, over time, many employees will seek the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience with others. Providing them with the chance to become mentors allows them to apply the insight they’ve gained and take on a rewarding leadership role.
Make recognition a strategic priority
Recognition plays a critical role in boosting employee morale, enhancing productivity, and driving retention and engagement. To maximize its impact, align recognition programs with your companyās strategy, goals, and values. Implement peer-to-peer recognition systems like ākudos boardsā or āshout-outs,ā empowering employees to celebrate each otherās contributions. Additionally, ensure leadership involvementārecognition from senior leaders can be especially powerful in making employees feel valued and motivated.
Help employees continuously find purpose in their work
According to research by PwC, when employees feel a strong connection to their organization’s purpose, it significantly improves retentionāby 5.3x for millennials and 2.3x for non-millennials. While leaders tend to agree on the importance of purpose, make sure you incorporate systems and processes into daily work that continuously examine and reinforce organizational purpose.Ā
Continue to live out your culture
In the same way that purpose needs to be continuously reinforced, cultureāthat is, how you think, act, and behave as an organizationāalso needs to be a regular part of how you make decisions, interact as a team, and organize work. Culture is never fully built; itās something that must be nurtured and maintained to continue to bring meaning and value to employees. As we like to say: Culture is built by people. And runs on talent.
