The Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, and Biotech (PHB) industry is expanding swiftly, bringing its share of opportunities and challenges. That’s why it is necessary to pay attention to leadership, innovative practices, and employee engagement. By bridging the gap between organizational intent and employee sentiment, we can create a more people-centric culture that fosters positive people practices and encourages innovation across the board. In this blog, we’ll explore these topics in depth and share insights on creating a culture of innovation in the PHB industry.
Leadership Effectiveness
For any industry to thrive, leadership effectiveness is an essential component. To foster an environment of trust and engagement among employees, leaders must prioritize building genuine connections with their team, ensuring clear and effective communication. Leaders can achieve this by being approachable and showing genuine concern for the well-being of the team; while also, clearly communicating the organization’s vision and providing a clear roadmap to achieving the goals.
Organizations should explore leaders from varied backgrounds to truly maximize human potential, and improve employee engagement. From our recent study, leaders at the Best Workplaces in PHB ensure effective communication through all channels, including top-down, bottom-up, and candid communication. Not only do these leaders ensure they “walk the talk” by delivering on promises and actions matching their words, but also focus on hiring, the fitment of employees, and overall development. By focusing on proficiency and genuinely fulfilling unmet needs, leaders in the industry are taking a step toward building trust.
Employee Expectations
According to our recent study, there is a disconnect between employee expectations and the experience delivered by employers in the PHB industries. To bridge this gap and become more people-centric, organizations must listen to their employees more and implement changes accordingly.
Real-time employee listening and delivering feedback is key to creating a framework for a great workplace. A great workplace is built on the foundation of trust and embeds meaningful values and effective leadership, allowing the organization to maximize its human potential and fostering innovation For All™. Trust is the fuel that powers performance, and the trust levels of employees are determined by the quality of their experience, which is generated through the right people practices.
Unfortunately, organizations in the PHB industry have sub-optimal levels of practices in all aspects. To improve employee engagement and create a positive experience, organizations need to develop effective practices that show greater intent to employees. By focusing on trust, values, and effective leadership, organizations can create a great workplace culture that leads to financial growth.
Innovation Experience
Innovation is the key to success in the PHB industry, but it’s not always easy to achieve. Organizations need to focus on creating individual inspiration and organization-connect toward innovation. This can be achieved through effective practices and greater opportunities.
According to our recent study, employees in the PHB industry report the least positive experience in a culture of innovation due to a lack of innovation opportunities. The PHB industry shows maximum intent with practices focused on innovation, but employee experience is the lowest.
To improve this, organizations need to devise more and better practices as the first step and then disseminate them to employees for a better experience. By creating a culture of “Innovation by All” organizations can foster a sense of hyper-motivation and pride in the workplace. This culture is critical for sustenance and enduring success. An intentional 2-way conversation helps celebrate innovation at work and provides opportunities for developing new and better ways of doing things.
To build and sustain a culture of innovation, management needs to genuinely seek ideas and suggestions from employees and then act on them. This can be achieved through organizational connection, where management involves people in decision-making.
The way forward for the PHB industry is to bring the workplace culture to center stage. The industry needs to focus on fairness and managaement credibility to reduce the gap between the PHB industry and other industries in India. Compared to the previous year, organizations have managed to deliver positive growth in creating a safe place to work. However, amongst all aspects, the maximum decline is seen in fairness, followed by pay/benefits and credibility.
By addressing these areas, the industry can improve employee engagement and create a more positive and innovative work culture.
To conclude, the best workplaces in the PHB industry are leading the movement in all three aspects: quality of practices, employee experience, and culture of innovation. On average, the best workplaces score 25% higher on quality of practices and 5% more on employee experience. These organizations set the standard for the rest of the industry and serve as a model for creating a positive and innovative work culture leading to sustainable success.
