While the job market is tough for life sciences professionals right now, it won’t always be. Employers must continue striving to create fulfilling work environments, as the market won’t always be in their favor, say biopharma execs.
Executives at BioMarin, Alumis and Cytokinetics agree that while life sciences companies currently have their pick of talent, things won’t stay that way for long. All three will discuss how employers should approach workforce strategies at the upcoming LEAP HR: Life Sciences West.
“There’s always been volatility in the job market. It goes up, it goes down,” said Amy Wireman, chief people officer at BioMarin. Wireman has spent more than a dozen years at the company and has headed up the people organization for the past six. She is no stranger to the pace of change in biopharma.
“In the industry, there’s a lot of change, and the nature of the work that we’re doing is evolving quickly,” Wireman told BioSpace. That sometimes requires strategic pivots. “At BioMarin, we have gone through a lot of change. Last year we completely revamped our strategy, we rolled that out, and our teams are embracing this new approach as an opportunity to do more for patients.”
Derrick Richardson, senior vice president of people and culture at Alumis, expressed a similar sentiment, discussing how companies have reacted to market conditions.
“The economy has created some challenges for clinical-stage companies like ours,” Richardson told BioSpace. “We’ve had to be really agile and nimble in thinking through our strategy.”
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been some benefits.
“The pendulum has shifted, and I think the employer has a lot more control,” Richardson said. “And because of that, people are kind of staying put.”
However, he warned that employers won’t have an upper hand forever. Once the market warms up, there will be quite a bit of mobility.
“Don’t take that for granted,” Richardson said. “Make sure that you’re still engaging. Make sure that you’re still creating the kind of environment that people want to be in.”
Engaging Employees With Purpose—While You Have Them
Selena Yuan, global head of talent development at Cytokinetics, leverages her background in psychology and organizational behavior when thinking about how to inspire and empower high performance in a more sustainable way. Recently, she has been thinking critically about engagement and retention, and how the meaning of loyalty has evolved. Yuan discussed how purpose-driven work is paramount to today’s workforce.
“A lot has changed in the past 5 years. For instance, loyalty. Employees nowadays may not necessarily stay loyal to their employer forever. When it comes to employee tenure, it is less about staying with one company for a long time, rather it is more likely that employees will stay loyal and committed to doing meaningful work and stay true to their purpose,” she said when describing changing attitudes in today’s workforce.
That means employers need to be vigilant about creating meaningful, purpose-aligned work for their employees if they want to optimize productivity and culture.
Richardson agreed.
“I think the fact that we have persevered and grown our team significantly during this period is attributable to embracing both who we are as a company and our values,” he said.
Additionally, Wireman highlighted the importance of transparency within the organization and staying focused on shared purpose. She noted it was shared purpose that helped BioMarin maintain cohesion and positivity amidst external challenges.
“It’s really easy in the biotech space to connect people to our purpose,” Wireman said. “We’re all serving patients and looking to make our communities better and healthier.”
Yuan believes that while loyalty at any one employer may not last forever, it is imperative to tap into people’s skills and capacity while they are there.
“I’ll bet we have a workforce that’s not fully tapped into yet in terms of their skill set and capacity, intellectual capacity,” she said. “So that’s something I would challenge everyone, myself included—how do we best tap into that without burning people out, but also make them feel fulfilled and also excited to come to work?”
Adapting to Rapidly Evolving Business Needs
All three executives emphasized the need for people-focused teams to adapt.
Richardson said one of the most important things for human resources teams to do is strive to understand the business. Richardson’s own background is in engineering and program management, giving him critical insight into operational needs.
“The HR team is the engine for scaling this company. And if they don’t have the right orientation, or they’re not thinking about the business in the right way, then they become just kind of purely tactical,” he said.
Yuan believes HR needs to move much faster to keep up with the pace of how the workforce is shifting, including technological shifts that impact the business. She believes there’s an opportunity for human resources to be a strategic lever, not only enabling but leading some of this transformative change.
“What do people want and look for when they come to work?” Yuan said. “How do we maximize their capacity, meaning their intellect, their skills and their passion, that is not fully tapped into, as a strategic differentiator for companies?”
Wireman shared that BioMarin introduced its new operating principles, the BioMarin 8, after identifying a need to galvanize its culture as it revamped its strategy.
“It’s all very connected to executing our strategy,” she said.” She will discuss those operating principles at the upcoming LEAP conference.
Richardson, who will be attending his third LEAP in April, had high praise for the event.
“It’s hands down the best conference format that I’ve been to in over 30 years,” he said. “So I’m just looking forward to going and plugging in.”
This will be the first LEAP for Yuan.
“It’s fantastic, this kind of event, where practitioners will face similar challenges, but they all have different ideas,” she said. “We can come together, and what we can get out of that is very exciting.”
BioSpace is proud to be a media partner of LEAP HR: Life Sciences West. The 2025 edition of this event will be in San Francisco April 22-24. Register for the event.
