Five years ago, Kyowa Kirin set out to expand its North America operations, adding new employees and capabilities at a rapid pace. The Human Resources team ensures employee input is central to managing that growth and nurturing a culture to support it
The U.S. market is ripe with opportunity and the need for new medicines, but it can also be a challenging landscape for foreign-owned entities to navigate.
With a highly competitive and fluid employment market, reliance on employer-based benefits, and roles that require specialized skills – as well as the diversity of stakeholders involved in patient treatment and care decisions – scaling operations in the U.S. is complex. To succeed, companies must invest in talent strategies that support the recruitment and retention of key personnel.
Kyowa Kirin North America has faced these challenges head-on, quickly building the necessary capabilities to support the organization’s growth, as our portfolio expands. As a smaller company growing at a rapid pace, there is no lack of work – making employee feedback all the more important in helping the organization focus and prioritize.
Engaging Employees to Help Define a New Region
A global specialty pharmaceutical company that strives to create and deliver novel medicines with life-changing value, Kyowa Kirin was formed by the merger of Kirin Pharmaceuticals and Kyowa Hakko in 2008, with roots in Japan that go back 70+ years. Its North America region was officially formed in 2019 around an existing, but small, footprint of U.S. operations. Since then, the region has experienced rapid growth – and now represents more than 20% of global company revenues. This growth is driven by three (3) first-in-class medicines that have been approved by the FDA since 2018, and strategic collaborations with global and external partners to advance promising assets in the company’s pipeline.
Upon the region’s creation in 2019, leadership recognized the need to define and nurture a strong company culture and to integrate the processes, policies, and financial systems used by existing teams in the region. External events and employee feedback defined some additional areas of focus for both HR and the broader leadership team: managing workplace changes as a result of the pandemic; creating new training programs to help employees develop new skills; and optimizing benefits to be competitive with companies in Kyowa Kirin’s peer group.
With so many capabilities to build, gaining employee input and help with the work has been critical. We’ve sought to understand what employees want so we can design programs and make changes that will most benefit the employees we count on to continue growing our business.
Through surveys, listening sessions, and employee-led workgroups, Kyowa Kirin allows employees to be part of the design process. Employing a “Pilot, Learn, then Adapt” approach helps new programs get off the ground quickly – enabling leadership to evaluate what works, what can be improved, and how to scale efforts to a larger employee population. To date, this has been critical to the introduction of a new culture, training, and overall well-being programs, emphasizing mental health, since 2020.
Leading Through Listening and Collaboration
This “Pilot, Learn, then Adapt” approach has also empowered a diverse range of team members to play a part in shaping what the organization does, and how it can be improved. Passionate employees are engaged in constructing entirely new programs and collaborating with colleagues globally who share their passions.
In fact, new initiatives aren’t always started by headquarters. Sometimes, they are introduced in one or multiple regions of the company – and then imported by Japan, where the company has a larger workforce. Without extensive existing infrastructure to change, the North American region often has the opportunity to pilot and implement new programs quickly, and then share best practices with more established regions.
This was exactly how the company approached and defined its policies for reopening and managing a new normal in the post-pandemic workplace. Across its regions, the company recognized an opportunity to rethink “the future of work.” But early discussions among global top management revealed different regional views on the workplace and its role in the business; employment laws, cultural norms, and competitive dynamics also varied from region to region.
To understand these issues better, KKNA Leadership initiated a business needs assessment to get benchmarking and employee feedback on work styles, schedules, and office space preferences. Ultimately, our region used this information to define a Future of Work model fit for our business and geographic needs. We adopted a hybrid work model that only requires employees to work in the office 2 days per week and consolidated our offices into a new building in New Jersey that was designed with employee input, to encourage opportunities for cross-functional collaboration. Our region also offers employees a “work from anywhere” benefit – giving them up to four weeks a year to work in a location of their choosing.
The programs KKNA adopted were aligned with other regions through a consistent set of guiding principles that emphasize employee well-being, flexibility, and teamwork. A similar approach has helped the company start up diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, and learning programs to develop the skills each region needs in its next generation of leaders.
No matter the challenge or goal, Kyowa Kirin recognizes that our growth strategy relies on a motivated and engaged employee base. By continuing to listen and engage with employees, our company actively works to ensure their needs are understood and considered in new programs and policies. In turn, this helps our employees feel they are part of a culture of collaboration, passion, and success that creates profound impacts for patients and caregivers across the region and the globe.
