Building a Culture that Aligns with Candidate’s Values

In the wake of the pandemic, there is one thing on a business owner’s mind - and that is to ensure you are doing everything to thrive while navigating our ‘Covid-altered’ world. 

It will take some months and possibly even years to fully comprehend how the pandemic has affected your business. However, you can start implementing strategies to protect your organisation this year and for the future. 

There is currently a large window of opportunity for pharmaceutical, medical, and life science organisations to get your culture right.  

Today, I'll take you through why now is the most critical time in years to work on your organisational culture. 

Why Culture Matters in Pharma NOW 

Every organisation has a culture, whether you actively work to cultivate one or not. 

Historically, the companies who actively implement positive culture building methodology enjoy greater success than those who don’t. A lack of control over your company culture has been identified as the single issue at the heart of organisational failure. 

But what about now, in our post-Covid era? How important is an organisational culture now? 

A recent H.R. survey into employee engagement found that only 62% of respondents felt that their organisation reflected and worked on issues raised in employee engagement surveys. That’s nearly two-thirds of employees who feel that their current employer isn’t doing enough to maintain a positive organisational culture – what would your employees say about the way positive culture is encouraged in your team? 

And according to a pre-Covid Reputation Institute report, there had already been a significant decline in the trust, and confidence individuals have in pharma companies as employers in recent years.   

The truth is that we are in the most critical time in a generation. Getting your culture right now has never been more essential, both in terms of keeping your existing team together and working harmoniously and successfully, but also in attracting new talent. 

How to Cultivate a Positive Culture with Current Employees 

The first thing to remember when it comes to improving your company culture is that it all starts with leadership. As this HBR article states, 85% of CEOs and CFOs believe that an unhealthy culture leads to unethical behaviour. Simultaneously, nearly half of all employees surveyed found that leadership is minimally or not at all committed to improving culture. 

Right now, as we move through the pandemic, your pharma and medical device employees are facing new and unique challenges; it is, therefore, critical that they feel personally supported by your management team  

There are several things you can do to improve the relationship between employees and leaders in your organisation, such as: 

• Give employees more autonomy in their roles. This is especially vital as more employees work from home; they want and need to feel trusted. 
• Encourage employees to speak up when they aren’t 100% sure on tasks or if they think they could improve a system or procedure.  
• Develop a culture of recognition within your team – the more leaders encourage and celebrate employee wins, the stronger and more positive your culture will become. 
• As your pharmaceutical, medical device or life science team adjusts to a post-Covid working environment, robust and supportive leadership needs to be employed by all your management.  

Finally, let’s look at ways to build a culture that works to attract new talent to your organisation. 

Build Culture into Your Talent Attraction Strategy 

It is crucial to remember that the most significant way to positively shape your organisational culture is through your recruitment. 

Recruiting new employees should always be about bettering the whole team, rather than hiring people for disjointed or short-sighted reasons. The ‘wrong’ hiring decisions are often made when you hire candidates who do not fit in with your cultural goal. 

When you are scouting for new talent, alongside working history, skills and abilities, it is key to consider each candidate’s personality, operating style and behaviour in their role. Remember that a candidate with the right cultural fit for your organisation can develop their skills and abilities – skills can be learned, but culture fit cannot. 

Think about your current star employees and how they interact with each other – then think about if you have had any employees in the past who couldn’t amalgamate into the team, what kind of personalities were they? 

We all have different working styles, so figuring out what kind of person you want to fit in with your team should be carried out before starting your recruitment process. There are different tools you can use, such as personality profiling, aptitude tests and psychometric testing.  

As recruiters in the pharmaceutical, medical device and life science industries, we understand how vital it is that you have the right systems in place to protect your culture. 

A weakened culture – one where your employees are pulling in different directions – will spark your recruitment and retention problems further down the line. 

If you would like to know more about how I can find you the candidates who are an excellent cultural fit – get in touch with me today.

Thanks,

Chris