Best Practices for BioHealth Capital Region Talent Acquisition and Retention: Now and Tomorrow

The BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) ecosystem is continuing to grow, with large companies expanding or opening new facilities and startups blooming steadily. The region has become the epicenter of innovation, development, and activity due to its tremendous response to the COVID-19 pandemic and strong partnerships with federal agencies, regulatory bodies, and funding bodies, and remains on track to become a Top 3 Biocluster by 2023.

Despite this momentum, though, there are two major blocks on the track that could threaten to derail the train – talent acquisition and retention.

This talent shortage, particularly in biomanufacturing roles, has accelerated over the past two years and will remain the top priority for companies in the future. One thing is sure: with industry demand for talent outpacing talent availability, collaboration and innovation will become critical in order to sustain the BHCR ecosystem. It also means that the major ecosystem-supporting organizations like academia, incubators, and economic development organizations all need to work more closely together. 

This past fall, thought leaders and subject matter experts from around the region have been convening to discuss these very topics at venues such as the 8th annual BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) Forum and the 2022 Maryland Life Sciences Bioinnovation Convention, sharing insights on proactive strategies for talent acquisition and retention that can benefit both individual companies and the ecosystem as a whole.  

Talent Acquisition

Talent acquisition strategies should be focused on developing pathways to hire locally within BHCR and attracting top talent from outside the region. This will grow the BHCR workforce and lessen future cannibalization of talent among local companies.

Building Solid Academia-Industry Partnerships

There are numerous avenues for BHCR companies to partner with local universities and trade schools and develop a robust pipeline of in-demand skilled workers. Short-term collaborations include delivering guest lectures at local academic institutions or hosting networking events for students to interface with industry members. However, companies should prioritize long-term partnerships with academia by offering apprenticeships, internships to students, and working with academia leadership to restructure the academic curriculum.​​ By working collaboratively, companies can easily hire local talent with skills and training customized to their needs. 

For these kinds of initiatives to be successful long-term, there should be active and regular engagement between all parties involved. To this effect, departments and organizations such as the Maryland Department of Commerce, Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, and Frederick County Office of Economic Development are regularly engaging with local institutes and companies to leverage strategic partnerships and bolster synergies among regional players.

A recent BHCR industry-academia success story is the Kite Pharma- Hood College partnership. For many years, Hood College has been robustly developing the talent workforce in Frederick County and strengthening its commitment to students and the business community in Frederick County. In 2021, the college partnered with the biopharmaceutical company, Kite Pharma, to help train its current and future workforce before the opening of its new state-of-the-art cell therapy facility in Urbana in southern Frederick County. Kite installed a 400-square-foot lab in Hood’s Hodson Science and Technology Center to provide Kite employees and Hood undergraduate and graduate students with valuable skill-based training and hands-on applied learning experiences in cell therapy manufacturing. 

Kite scientists and Hood faculty are also collaborating to develop undergraduate and graduate curricula and programs. This partnership not only helped Kite to fill talent needs for its workforce but also served as the foundation for a long-term collaboration between Kite and Hood College. 

RELATED: Kite Pharma Invests in Maryland’s Workforce Development Programming

Many academic institutes are actively implementing programs and institutes to prepare future talent. Hood College has recently opened a Biomedical Research and Training Center on its campus. The goal of this Center is to offer programming that will include on-campus and online workshops, bridge courses to prepare graduate students for advanced research, and programming focused on developing specific high-demand skills defined by industry partners. Other academic institutes are not far behind; Montgomery College’s Biotechnology AA program and UMBC’s Translational Life Science Training program and Biotech Master’s program are also focused on developing workforce-ready graduates.

Hiring a Diverse Workforce

Different BHCR companies will attract different talent pools. Instead of senior level professionals, early-stage R&D and product development companies have increased hiring of recent graduates or self-starters who “seek a career, not a job.” These job seekers are interested in applying their technical and soft skills to contribute to multiple key areas across the organization. As such, they can be involved in company growth and decision-making at an earlier stage. This is a win-win on both sides: it enables early-career employees to gain a lot of experience in a short period and access career succession faster. This also works to the benefit of the organization, having an employee who can work across the board and succeed in multipurpose roles. Many early-stage companies have been hiring more recent graduates and expanding their geographical parameters to recruit talent to the BHCR region. 

On the other hand, biomanufacturing has faced a unique hiring challenge. Maryland currently has more than 3000+ open positions in bioprocess manufacturing, which offer some of the state’s most competitive salaries. Filling in these positions has been surprisingly challenging, in part to the common misunderstanding among job seekers that these roles can only be filled by individuals with a Ph.D. degree. However, many functions in biomanufacturing aren’t hung up on the degree qualifications and will readily hire candidates with a master’s degree, Bachelor’s degree, or even an Associate’s degree. Thus, a future goal of companies should be to effectively communicate and market these job roles. Organizations such as NIMBL are also working to drive attitude change within the hiring communities so that qualifications such as apprenticeships, badging, credentialing, and even community college degree programs can springboard more individuals into biomanufacturing positions. 

RELATED: How Do We Actually Meet the Needs of the Evolving Life Science Workforce?

On the other hand, several companies are revolutionizing the hiring process. For example, Catalyte, a software development and engineering company, uses AI to identify and hire any job seeker with aptitude, regardless of background, and trains them to become software engineers. Over the past 25 years, their models have helped solve the tech talent shortage by creating new, high-performing software developers and digital media planners. Not only that, but by implementing their models, Catalyte has successfully hired a diverse workforce and also empowered candidates with non-traditional backgrounds. Such tools can be customized for BHCR companies based on biotech-specific performance metrics that could identify individuals with non-traditional backgrounds who might be the perfect fit for opportunities within BHCR biotech. 

On the subject of talent recruitment, it is also essential that companies employ and empower a diverse workforce that welcomes individuals from all walks of life without bias against gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender orientation, etc. Numerous studies have shown diverse organizations outperform their counterparts. Companies such as Horizon Therapeutics made significant strides in encouraging diversity in STEM fields. Since 2016, they have partnered with the  Perspective Math and Science Academy (located in Brownsville, Chicago). The partnership focuses on pairing strong social emotional learning with a rigorous college preparatory curriculum emphasizing science, technology, math, engineering and the arts to students.

While companies have made great strides in gender parity in overall employment, the next essential step is to attain more women and underrepresented groups in leadership and executive roles. Diverse leaders shape the policies and initiatives that sustain the workforce and ultimately drive change and innovation across the industry.

Talent Retention

It is not enough to just acquire talent, retaining talent is also essential.  With increasing competition for talent in a finite regional pool, it is not uncommon for companies to poach on another company’s workforce. On the other hand, with thousands of companies located within the region, employees have limitless options when it comes to switching companies for career growth or better pay, making job hopping the new norm for many. Ultimately poaching and job hopping hurt the company and the region in the end: constant rehiring and training costs companies more money and stunts productivity. More significantly, it means no new talent is being added to the region- it’s just reshuffling of the existing hand. 

RELATED: How Life Sciences Companies Can Successfully Execute and Sustain Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Initiatives

To combat this, companies have been developing creative solutions to retain talent. For instance, many BHCR Biotech companies are often hiring and relocating people from biotech cluster areas. This increases the overall workforce in the region and makes BHCR a more competitive ecosystem. With inflation, increasing employee salaries isn’t always possible for smaller and mid-size companies. To circumvent this, they have begun providing competitive benefits and perks to employees. Several companies have also started investing in their employee’s professional growth by offering learning opportunities. With the right learning and growth opportunities, employees feel like they’re making the right decision for their careers. 

Retention strategy should go far beyond raising wages and improving benefits. In a strong company culture, company executives and managers know their employees and what they need individually in terms of job flexibility, time off, and benefits. Even elements of the workplace that seem unimposing—meetings, emails, paperwork requirements, or how people joke around—may bog down a company culture if they are seen as pointless or unappealing and could incentivize employees to seek opportunities elsewhere.

RELATED: Six Strategies to Retain Employees Amidst the Great Resignation

Company leaders should regularly evaluate and improve their company culture. One effective strategy would be to obtain feedback and suggestions from employees and managers on ways to improve best practices. Employees who feel that they contributing to an improved company culture and see tangible solutions being implemented are more likely to stay at their company. 

Industry demands will always alter the BHCR landscape, and companies will routinely need to redefine, reassess, and reevaluate talent acquisition and retention priorities and best practices. Those that can develop effective solutions to address these workforce challenges will undoubtedly be set for long-term success.