Activate These Three Levers To Create A More Effective Workforce
By Ruby van den Hoff
At a time of continuous change and increasing complexity, success for life sciences companies will largely depend on how they support, nurture and develop their teams. But even that has gotten more complicated. The convergence of several market forces and challenges — think the ongoing AI-driven transformation, patent cliffs realigning business focus, and global market disruptions — will force life sciences employers to rethink their workforce strategies and reimagine how work gets done, and by whom.
Finding the right people for the right work has certainly gotten more complicated, especially for life sciences companies seeking highly specialized talent for their operations around the world. But it’s not impossible, as I’ve seen plenty of businesses pivot in response to immense change with great results.
One company that comes to mind is a global biopharmaceutical company that has successfully balanced a multitude of challenges while evolving its talent strategy. It’s able to overcome talent shortages by considering how permanent employees, contractors and, yes, AI can best perform the work that needs to be done. By rethinking its approach to talent, the company achieved cost savings of $3.5 million annually, a time to fill rate nearly half of its original goal and just 1% of requisitions older than 75 days.
As outlined below, the ability to adapt to change like this company did will help other organizations reach an ideal state of talent utilization, when faced with growing pressure to maximize the impact of your people while optimizing spend.
Many Factors Driving Change
As always, talent will be a key differentiating factor for life sciences companies. And as use cases for AI continue to expand, it provides new opportunities to augment human work. That’s why more companies find the optimal mix of resources to include AI tools to complement their people, from accelerating drug discovery to optimizing clinical trials and fueling operational efficiency.
But as life sciences companies race to implement AI and take full benefit of the technology across their operations, it also drives the need for even more specialized talent. It’s not just about hiring people with pharmaceutical backgrounds; you also want those experienced with AI, data and analytics, as well as applying technology to life-enhancing products — and who can keep up as the skills you need and technology change constantly.
Hiring such individuals has gotten more difficult, as you must first find the right talent pools, all while juggling costs, skills availability and worker preferences. Consider how the Asia-Pacific region has become a large and growing source of talent for biotech and life sciences, which as a result has driven an increase in wages across the region. For instance, India’s bioeconomy is expected to have reached $150 billion in 2025, driving up competition for skilled talent and in turn increasing compensation by as much as 15%.
In addition to the challenges in finding qualified talent, life sciences companies are also under growing pressure to reduce labor costs. As PwC found, medical costs are rising rapidly, placing greater demand on medical manufacturers to lower cost structures while accelerating product development. This further drives the need to optimize talent strategies, whether through redeployment, contingent resources, and other alternatives to reduce costs while delivering on company objectives.
Thee Ways To Optimize Your Workforce
So how can life sciences companies mitigate these many challenges and elevate their workforce strategies? The answer is to reengineer the workforce in a way that plays to new technological capabilities, focuses on the unique skills talent can bring, and offers the work arrangements that they prefer while creating more business agility. As demonstrated by the biopharmaceutical company mentioned previously — and as countless other companies in the sector are realizing — taking an “all of the above” approach will allow your business to optimize all talent and technological resources and navigate a disruptive period with foresight, agility, and coordination.
Redefine Work: While there has been much discussion about AI replacing jobs, and some organizations are doing that to a degree, it hasn’t been at the large scale many have feared. In fact, Randstad’s 2026 Workmonitor research finds that 54% of global employers say AI has increased their companies’ productivity over the past year. However, the response among life sciences employers shows that less than half (47%) agree with this statement, a gap resulting from the highly regulated nature of the industry. As McKinsey reports, incorporating AI isn’t just about adding technology to existing processes, but requires a complete reimagining of drug discovery and development workflows.
Certainly, the full potential of AI for the life sciences industry has yet to be fulfilled, but there is tremendous opportunity to redefine work for the AI era. The proven path forward is to start by separating tasks into human-centric and machine-suited activities, based on where people are more effective, like tasks requiring empathy, creativity, and problem solving. For example, clinical studies are best conducted by people who interface with patients, while data collection and analysis can be expedited significantly when AI is used in the process.
The combination of AI and human skills promises to enhance people’s abilities and bring new efficiencies, as long as leaders ensure proper training and education on how to use it in a safe, compliant, and productive way.
Embrace A Skills-Based Approach: As life sciences companies strive to secure the talent to help them deliver on key priorities, many find that talent scarcity persists. This makes it difficult to find candidates with the right skills and knowledge, in not just highly specialized fields like diagnostics or bioinformatics, but across all areas of the business.
Whatever skills are in need, hiring processes typically focus on degrees and titles, rather than skills and hands-on experience. However, we’ve seen companies successfully overcome skills shortages through a comprehensive skills-based approach that prioritizes an individual’s capabilities and interest in learning new skills over traditional credentials.
The Workmonitor research shows that 85% of life sciences employers say they value skills over formal qualifications when hiring talent, demonstrating that the industry has mostly embraced the skills-based hiring approach.
For best results, such a strategy should be combined with a robust learning and development program so all talent can continually learn new skills in this rapidly changing landscape. Internal mobility needs to be incorporated as well, preparing internal talent for new and advanced roles, rather than having to look externally for each open position. These actions will only further help to mitigate talent scarcity, while ensuring your company benefits from a skilled workforce equipped with the knowledge to advance your priorities.
Consider alternative work arrangements: In addition to growing use cases for AI and increased focus on skills, another way we’ve seen companies achieve workforce agility is by looking beyond full-time employees to fill crucial gaps and optimize work arrangements. Between statement of work (SOW) engagements, temporary staff, gig workers, freelancers and contractors, leveraging a variety of work arrangements empowers your company to reduce labor costs, gain faster access to the skills you need and, overall, achieve greater operational agility. Some companies are even embracing an integrated model whereby all work arrangements are considered for each role.
The global biopharmaceutical company is just one example of a company integrating its approach to talent acquisition effectively. Rather than following historical practices, like filling an open role with another full-time employee, it uses data and insights to find the right person to do the job, regardless of work arrangement. By expanding its talent search to all types of workers, it can find talent much faster, even for highly specialized roles.
Opening up to different types of workers also fits in with the current talent landscape, in which more individuals seek greater autonomy, flexibility, and control over how they work. The Workmonitor research found that only 29% of global workers say the traditional single full-time role is their preferred working arrangement. Instead, many prefer a full-time role plus a side hustle or additional hours (18%), self-employment (11%), part-time roles (11%) and part-time roles with a side hustle (10%). At the same time, 72% of employers in the sector say the traditional linear career path, characterized by staying in one company with regular promotions, is outdated, recognizing the value of different career paths and ways of working.
These findings are mutually beneficial. When you offer different types of roles to attract skilled talent who might not be looking for a traditional full-time position, you’ll meet the desire among talent for a wide range of work options, whether they are looking to gain more flexibility, learn new skills to enhance their value, or simply increase their income.
Achieving Workforce Agility
2026 promises to be a year of new challenges and opportunities for life sciences companies. With factors like geopolitical forces, ongoing market shifts, and the unstoppable influence of technology on all aspects of operations, it’s more important than ever for companies in the sector to optimize workforce performance. By pulling the right levers to effectively augment work with AI, prioritize skills over experience, and consider all types of work, you’ll organically create a more effective workforce with the skills and agility to tackle current obstacles — and whatever lies ahead.
About The Author:
Ruby van den Hoff is the managing director of EMEA-based global accounts and life sciences for Randstad Enterprise. She works with Fortune 500 companies to develop and deliver solutions that improve and drive strategic access to talent. van den Hoff has more than 15 years of experience in recruitment and workforce consulting with major global clients and has worked for more than 10 years delivering contingent and permanent solutions for major life sciences companies.