How life science leaders are navigating diversity and inclusion challenges

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the life sciences industry has been moving in a positive direction in recent years, but there is still much to be done.

This is borne out by data. One study of 132 life sciences companies in the UK found that women make up only 14.8% of company boards and 21% of executive managers, while just 7.3% of board directors are from racial and ethnic minorities. Meanwhile, 41% of companies in the sector have all-male boards.

D&I is extremely important to our work at Michael Page Life Sciences, and our clients feel the same way. With that in mind, we recently held a panel discussion to discuss diversity and inclusion in life sciences, featuring:

• Uday Bose, Managing Director, Boehringer Ingelheim UK & Ireland
• Gus Romano-Jackson, Head of HR, Legal and Compliance, Sumitomo Chemical UK
• Bolu Faseun, UK DE&I Manager, PageGroup

The session covered a host of D&I-related issues, from the measures our guests have put in place to retain diverse life sciences talent, to how employers can encourage greater inclusion through the recruitment process.

Watch the full webinar

Here are some of the key takeaways:

The challenges of navigating D&I in life sciences

The life sciences industry faces its own challenges when it comes to driving diversity and inclusion.

For Uday Bose, one of the biggest challenges is making sure that Boehringer Ingelheim’s internal activities reflect the diversity of the customer population it serves.

When you go and see customers, you are reminded that the society that we as a sector exist to serve is incredibly diverse. You should be able to turn and look at your own organisation and see the same thing. Connecting well with our customers is one of the biggest commercial challenges that we face as an organisation.

Another issue is ensuring that diverse employees feel included. Hiring from diverse talent pools is critical, but there is little point in doing so if those candidates do not feel included or supported once they get the job.

As with many D&I-related challenges, overcoming it is often a matter of improving communication. As Uday explains:

I make a point of having welcome days when new recruits come in, to say, ‘Before you get overwhelmed by the day job and the to-do list, always remind yourself why you're here, who you are, and where you've come from, and never feel afraid or ashamed to be able to share that.’ Because that's what we're looking for.

Measures to drive diversity and inclusion

There are many initiatives and policies which, by enhancing the diversity of talent pools and improving retention of diverse candidates, can help overcome skills shortages in life science. But Gus Romano-Jackson argues that policies will not improve D&I if an organisation does not have an inclusive culture.

It all starts at leadership level, as Gus explains:

The personality of the leadership team – not just as individuals, but the personality that they have as a group – is really important. Leaders that are able to show and feel empathy are really interesting to work with in terms of inclusion and diversity, even though they might not belong to one of those clusters of minority groups.

Uday flags up another key issue: creating the space for inclusion to happen. Interestingly, he argues that the pandemic made this easier.

Screen-based culture forces people to look for voices, to go around the screen and make sure every voice is being heard. We've really tried to make sure that continues now we're back in the face-to-face environment, reminding managers to seek opinions.

Watch the full panel discussion here:

Supporting employees with mental health challenges

One in four UK adults experience mental illness, so it is vital that life science companies take steps to support employees experiencing mental health challenges.

Gus highlighted a wide range of initiatives that Sumitomo Chemical UK has put in place, ranging from daily “watercooler chats” in which employees are encouraged to talk about anything but work, to offering loans or subsidised rates to colleagues struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.

Again, communication was a common thread running through many of these policies. For instance, every single person in the organisation – from junior trainees to executive leaders – is offered a bi-monthly catch-up with Gus and the company’s managing director.

We call it the directors lunch, and we spend one hour talking about you. They have the opportunity for us to talk about anything they want.

However, no initiative is a silver bullet to supporting colleagues with their mental health. For Uday, one of the most important factors is simply to make mental health a constant focus.

If you start it, please don't do it as a one-off; ‘For this week we're going to have this opportunity to talk to people.’ Once you open the doors, you've got to keep the conversations going.

Incorporating ‘invisible’ factors into a D&I strategy

Clearly, not all elements of diversity and inclusion are about “visible” traits like gender or race. Many factors cannot be seen, from mental and physical health to socioeconomic background. Building these unseen elements into a comprehensive and impactful D&I strategy is a constant challenge.

Uday recommends a proactive approach: go out into communities and connect directly with specific candidate pools who may otherwise be overlooked or disadvantaged.

As an example, he cites the example of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who launched a programme called the Young Person's Guarantee, aimed at reaching young students whose education was affected by the pandemic.

Boehringer Ingelheim took part in the initiative by speaking to students about the practicalities of a career in life sciences.

When you ask 14, 15, 16-year-olds about pharmaceuticals and life sciences, they don’t always imagine the right things. But when you start explaining to them the things that we do, you can see the revelation.

Bolu Faseun, UK DE&I Manager at PageGroup, agreed that working with social mobility projects and charities can help organisations to better engage candidates from less privileged backgrounds.

The more that we work with charities and the more that we support them, the more that we as a business understand the things that we can put in place to support our employees who come from lower economic backgrounds.

Encouraging diversity in the recruitment process

Every life sciences organisation would love to reach more diverse talent pools and encourage diverse candidates to accept job offers. But building a recruitment process that encourages diversity requires a clear strategy.

Gus explains that there are two clear strands to the process. The first lies in partnering with the right recruitment agencies; those that truly understand diversity and inclusion.

If we have worked with someone for five years and we haven't received a single CV of someone from a diverse group, there is something wrong there.

The other strand is about the recruitment process itself. He urges hiring managers to only ask questions that are truly relevant.

For instance, I see a lot of people ask, ‘What are your A-level results?’ If the candidate was not educated in this country, they are not going to have an A level, and that excludes quite a lot of people.

Going further, Gus recommends blind candidate vetting, in which hiring managers can only see the core of a candidate’s CV.

We don't want the names, we don't want the age, we don't want nationality. That completely changes the dialogue for us, because we're really focusing on whether that person has the skills we are looking for or not.

Meanwhile, Uday advises companies to put diversity front and centre in their recruitment process.

If you go to a university stand and put up exclusively very mature, white, elderly individuals and you're trying to attract a diverse population of young generations, you're probably going to struggle. So just think about what your employees are seeing and leverage that.

What's next?

Want more insights on attracting and retaining the best life sciences talent? Check out our explainer on flexible hiring in life sciences or download our salary and skills guide for life sciences.

Looking to hire top life sciences talent? Get in touch with Michael Page Life Sciences today to start your search.

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