At Workforce Genetics we often find that clients and even some junior recruiters we speak with don’t quite understand the difference between Staffing Agencies and Search Firms when it comes to specifics within the recruiting industry.
Last week, we delved into why visual branding is important in helping your life science company stand out from the crowd to attract audiences such as investors and potential talent. We also provided a few tips on how to start thinking about your company’s science and approach differently so that you could create a style that is all your own. With Part 2 of this series, we want to help provide resources and inspiration to up your imagery game.
Studies have found that companies with a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) across the enterprise are more successful than those without. Why is there still a question regarding the value of DEI? If the goal of business is to perform, i.e., generate more revenue, raise share price, have a greater profit than last year, then having a commitment to diversity should no longer be an option. It should be as much an imperative as a strong balance sheet or growing EBITDA.
According to a 2020 report from McKinsey & Co., Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters, “companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile…A substantial differential likelihood of outperformance — 48% — separates the most from the least gender-diverse companies. In the case of ethnic and cultural diversity, our business-case findings are equally compelling: in 2019, top-quartile companies outperformed those in the fourth one by 36% in profitability…the likelihood of outperformance continues to be higher for diversity in ethnicity than for gender.”
While some companies really hit the ball out of the park when it comes to their visual presence, most suffer from the same common problems. Use of sky or royal blue color palettes. Arial fonts. Textbook scientific diagrams slapped haphazardly on the side, usually in grainy JPG quality.
Like many of you, I’m a consumer of biotech industry news. Multiple times of day I scour BioCentury, STAT, Endpoints, Fierce Biotech and LinkedIn to track the scientific landscape, company events, and people updates. During the height of the pandemic, these information sources fueled my confidence that vaccines were on the horizon and that our industry – biotech, pharma, and venture – was all the more pivotal. The 2020-21 news put a spotlight on the speed of innovation, the acceleration of company creation, and the ever-tightening competition for talent. It felt like an endless positive-loop of progress and hope and served as a fantastic motivation for my role as Talent Head at Atlas Venture. Despite the difficult life changes the pandemic created (quarantining, social distancing, remote work), the biotech industry raced forward with possibility, and the demand for talent created limitless opportunity for upward professional change.
And then came 2022. The pendulum swing of the biotech news cycle felt swift. Articles stressed the tightening public markets, the drop in venture creation, and tougher regulatory scrutiny with exclamation points of company after company restructurings and reductions in force. By the end of March, Fierce Biotech had a running tally (here) and…
A few years ago, during a conversation with my colleague, HR visionary Dr. Ernesto Marinelli, I asked for his perspective on the global talent market. Not only do the observations he offered then still hold today, but they also resonate louder than ever.
“This isn’t a war for talent,” he told me in so many words. “It’s a talent jungle” where organizations and their HR departments often find themselves at a loss for finding people with the right skills and sometimes may not even know who they should be seeking in terms of skills, qualifications, background, etc.
Dr. Marinelli’s Talent Jungle has only gotten more tangled and difficult to navigate due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its role in shifting the mindset of workers around the world.
Indeed, the health crisis has accelerated the pace of change in talent markets, giving rise to a new set of realities for organizations and their HR departments to recognize and confront to meet the perennial challenge of putting the right people, with the right skills, in the right places at the right time. Let’s look at a handful of those new realities, with suggested steps for how organizations and their HR teams can rise…
Coaching can be hugely beneficial to new employees to help them hit the ground running, and it’s something that leaders can do daily to start getting the most out of their new workforce as soon as possible. Below are some coaching tips for leaders and employees to welcome all of their new coworkers into the fold.
The life sciences industry is booming in our region and globally, which has put the need for more biotech talent in the spotlight. This urgent need for talent has finally made diversity and inclusion part of every discussion about talent acquisition and workforce development. Companies large and small are starting to take action to ensure their workforce demographics are right-sized to match a diverse workforce population.
Maryland is one of the dominant life sciences ecosystems along the eastern seaboard and has become a leader in cell therapy and infectious disease research. Using its Biotechnology Investment Incentive Tax Credit, the state has been able to attract pharma companies large and small to set up shop within the borders of Maryland.
More than 30 years ago, American psychologist and researcher Carol Dweck and her colleagues studied the behavior of children who had differing attitudes about success and failure. She realized the underlying beliefs that these kids had led to behaviors that either facilitated their growth, learning, and success or resulted in failure and discouragement. She coined the terms ‘growth mindset’ and ‘fixed mindset’ to describe these beliefs.
