Gallup Reported That Millennials Want A Workplace That Cares About Employees' Wellbeing. How Will We Engage The Millennials To Carry On, Or Will They Be Able To Change Pharma Culture?

FORWARD-LOOKING PHARMA COMPANIES ARE INCREASINGLY EMBRACING THIS GENERATION and leveraging new approaches to retain and grow millennials as future leaders. For instance, one company provided additional time off rather than compensation based on employee preferences. But pharma companies need to better understand how the industry’s less than illustrious reputation in broader society is taking its toll on employee morale. So, too, they should deliver on their rhetoric regarding talent investment, like advancing careers based on merit not politics, ensuring that benefits are really competitive not net shrinking, and that employee concerns are truly being acted upon. Pharma would be wise to focus on work-life culture as much as novel medicines to meet the challenges of the evolving workplace paradigm.

STEPHEN RAPUNDALO, PH.D., is president and CEO of MichBio.