Day One
7:15 am Registration & Networking
8:15 am What it Takes to Make a LEAP a Reality
8:20 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
Preparing HR for the Next Five to Ten Years of Work in Life Sciences
8:30 am Discover: Session Reserved for AON
8:50 am Discover: Embracing Remote Work: How Syndax Pharmaceuticals Maintains Culture & Productivity in a Distributed Workforce
Synopsis
- How can we transition to a predominantly remote workforce?
- Learn strategies for fostering connection and company culture among remote employees, including ‘meetings that matter’ and leveraging the commercial team’s remote work experience
- Discover Syndax’s lessons learned on managing remote work, including: an innovative approach to office space, partnering with Regis to provide on-demand office access for in-person collaboration, addressing productivity concerns and providing flexibility for employees
9:10 am Develop: How Else Can We Be More Agile & Prepare for the Future?
Synopsis
As life science organizations compete for staff, and struggle to retain valued employees, becoming accustomed to remote work is critical. With productivity increases of 47%, 74% of staff reporting they are more likely to stay at their company and an average saving of $11,000 per year for every employee, offering remote work is necessary. HR leaders need to iron out the creases to ensure they are leveraging this future focused strategy to its full potential. This is a Q&A session designed to help you understand the ‘how’.
9:30 am Action: How Are You Going To Build Resilience for the Future?
Synopsis
This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your organization.
9:50 am Speed Networking Break
Track A – Attracting Top Talent
Enhancing the Onboarding Experience to Retain Engagement
10:30 am Discover: Improving Belonging & Retention With a Thoughtful Onboarding Process
Synopsis
- How can we utilize our onboarding process to increase subsequent feelings of belonging and therefore staff retention?
- Focus on what your organization does well, and share this story in the onboarding process
- How Visterra have decreased attrition to single digits by leveraging the onboarding process as a tool to attract the right candidates and enhance belonging in the organization
10:50 am Discover: Enhancing Candidate Experience to Retain Engagement
Synopsis
- How can we remain a competitive employer?
- Re-evaluate your candidate experience and journey
- How PHC Holdings are revitalizing their candidate journey, from initial touch points to interview feedback which has led to an increase in candidate satisfaction scores
11:10 am Discover: Elevate Your Hiring Game: Proven Secrets for Identifying Game-Changing Employees
Synopsis
- Hiring Game Changers© is a time-tested methodology to identify true success factors that separate true gamechangers from average hires
- Develop Powerful Selection Strategies: Create custom interview questions to reveal a candidate’s true potential and differentiate coachable, high-impact hires from mediocre ones
- Evaluate Candidates Across Five Key Dimensions: Learn how to assess candidates using the Game Changer Rating Matrix, focusing on technical skills, communication, interpersonal abilities, aptitude, and attitude
11:30 am Develop: What Other Tweaks Can We Make to the Candidate Journey To Improve Experience?
Synopsis
This is a Q&A session designed to help you understand the ‘how’.
11:50 am Action: What Are You Going to Change About the Candidate Journey to Enhance Belonging & Retention?
Synopsis
- As we compete closely with other organizations for applicants, how can we speed up our onboarding process so that applicants stay engaged with our mission?
- What ways can we speed up the onboarding process between a) first interview b) being hired c) start date?
- What technology can we utilize to help us streamline this process?
This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your organization.
Track B – Developing Talent in Life Sciences
Leveraging Leadership Development Programs to Overcome Skills Gaps
10:30 am Discover: Breaking the Resistance: How Brii Biosciences Transformed Required Training into Engaging Learning Journeys
Synopsis
- How Brii Biosciences turned learning from a compliance checkbox into a powerful engagement tool
- How customized learning paths, built on employee feedback, became an integral part of the performance evaluation process – driving real investment in development.
- How Brii’s Learning Labs not only increased participation but also ensured that employees applied their knowledge, creating a lasting impact
10:50 am Discover: Microbiologic’s Comprehensive Leadership Development Program
Synopsis
- How can we build a strong pipeline of future talent?
- How to provide training sessions for a cohort of leaders over 12 months, culminating in a capstone ‘game show’ event
- Learn about Microiologic’s ‘Lead Academy’, ‘Drive Team’ and ‘Emerging Leaders’ programs that have had a significant impact on developing the organization’s leaders
11:10 am Develop: How Can We Ensure Our Leadership is Competent to Support the Business?
Synopsis
Navigating the Complexities of Leadership
A report by Boyden emphasizes the need for leaders to be agile, communicative, and capable of managing change effectively. HR professionals play a crucial role in identifying and developing leaders who possess these skills, ensuring that the organization can adapt to the rapidly changing landscape.
This is a Q&A session designed to help you understand the ‘how’.
11:30 am Action: How Are You Going to Evolve Your Leadership Development Programs?
Synopsis
Output Focused Action Session Facilitated by the Chair
- How can we carve out the time and space to make sure that our leaders are fully engaging in these sessions?
- How can we weave this into the day to day of the business? What are people’s experiences with running this virtually, hybrid, or in person?
- Can we implement mentoring or sponsorship in smaller companies, how has this worked for others?
- How can we develop our own HR teams so that they are more effective and cover more territory?
This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your organization.
End of Track
Track C – Retaining Talent in the Life Sciences Industry
Re- Energizing Employee Recognition & Total Rewardss
10:30 am Discover: How to Reward Employees with Exposure & Scientific Breakthroughs Instead of Purely Financial Incentives
Synopsis
- Explore approaches to employee recognition in life sciences, emphasizing how non-financial rewards—such as career development, visibility, and scientific impact— can drive engagement, retention, and innovation
10:50 am Develop: How Else Can We Create Compelling Compensation & Rewards?
Synopsis
HR leaders in scaling businesses need to prioritize their compensation and total rewards strategy. 69% of employees in the life sciences sector consider competitive pay and benefits as the top factor for job satisfaction. Additionally, companies with robust total rewards programs are 1.5 times more likely to report higher employee engagement and retention rates.
This is a Q&A session designed to help you understand the ‘how’
11:10 am Action: How Are You Going to Create Compelling Compensation & Rewards?
Synopsis
- How can we stay competitive in our packages to ensure we attract the right talent?
- What perks are people offering to their employees and what are they finding really resonates?
- What non-cash recognition are you giving to your employees? What affordable actions are out there?
- How are people managing pay transparency?
- How can we reward employees who stay with long term reward incentives? What creative things have people done?
- How can we reward people with exposure and scientific breakthrough rather than jumping initially to financial incentive?
This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your organization.
End of Track
12:10 pm Lunch
Revolutionizing your Hiring Systems to Find the Ideal Candidates
1:10 pm Discover: Embracing Skills-Based Hiring: Lessons from Syneos Health’s Journey
Synopsis
- What are the practical considerations and potential benefits of adopting a skills-based hiring strategy in the life sciences industry?
- Learn the key drivers behind this initiative, including the focus on quality of hire analytics and the hypothesis that skills-based hiring may lead to higher long-term success rates
- Discover Syneos Health’s implementation process, the challenges faced, and the initial results observed, including the impact on talent acquisition team engagement
1:30 pm Discover: Takeda’s Journey to Becoming a Skills-Based Organization
Synopsis
- How do you build a skills ecosystem, aligning all HR processes?
- What role does the Talent Marketplace play in becoming a Skills-Based organization?
- What are the barriers to becoming a skills-based organization and how is Takeda addressing them?
1:50 pm Develop: How Else Can We Improve Our Hiring Processes?
Synopsis
This is a Q&A session designed to help you understand the ‘how’.
2:10 pm Action: How Are You Going To Hire for the Right Candidate?
Synopsis
- How can we practice behavioral based hiring to ensure new hires fit into the current culture of our organization?
- How can we map job descriptions to competencies and interview questions to create a rigorous interview process that emphasises cultural importance?
- How can we create and communicate our value proposition and how can remote work tie into this?
- How can we enhance our employer branding and build advocates of our company?
- How can we partner with community colleges and other workforce pipelines to bring in talent to biotech that might not otherwise consider joining?
- How can we create apprenticeship programs to help increase entry level applicants?
This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your organization.
Implementing Innovative Development Opportunities to Keep Employees Engaged
1:10 pm Discover: Internal Development Opportunities: Gig Work
Synopsis
- Sarepta Therapeutics will present their innovative gig program that supports business needs with development opportunity
- Gig allows managers to post short term rotational jobs for short-term coverage of another employee’s leave of absence
- Discuss how this program aligns with your ‘own your career journey’ talent development initiative, allowing for work coverage while someone is out of office
1:30 pm Discover: Implementing a “Learn 2 Earn” Program to Enhance Retention
Synopsis
- How can we balance employees desire to develop while balancing the business need for internal mobility and promotion?
- Implement a “Learn 2 Earn” program that provides employees opportunities to develop new skills and earn pay increases
- How Abcam implemented a program with four tiers, allowing employees to become proficient in different areas of logistics and receive corresponding pay rises helping to create a sense of competition and growth within the team, reducing the number of employees seeking opportunities in other departments
1:50 pm Develop: How Else Can We Keep Employees Engaged & Motivated With Their Development in the Organization?
Synopsis
After periods of rapid growth and entering a focus on business stability, employee engagement becomes a critical affair. With 45% of employees being burned out by organizational changes, HR leaders need to find new ways to keep these employees motivated through downturn and fewer career development opportunities. Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their organization and are 15% more profitable for their company – which is crucial during periods of financial setbacks.
This is a Q&A session designed to help you understand the ‘how’.
2:10 pm Action: What Are You Going to Change About the Way You Are Keeping Employees Engaged in Their Development?
Synopsis
- How can we close the middle management skills gap, when we have scaled so quickly?
- How can we make becoming a manager more than just an ‘add on’, how can we support these employees with their new responsibilities?
- How can we provide the capabilities and resources to support our managers independence? How are others making sure that their leaders have these resources available when needed? • What is the taxonomy of this, how are organizations issued, and resources organized?
- How can we provide the structure and training to our first line managers? How do you build out L&D for these employees?
- How can we carve out the time and space to make sure that our leaders are fully engaging in these sessions?
- How can we weave this into the day to day of the business? What are people’s experiences with running this virtually, hybrid, or in person?
- Can we implement mentoring or sponsorship in smaller companies, how has this worked for others?
- How can we develop our own HR teams so that they are more effective and cover more territory? This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your organization.
Enhancing Employee Engagement to Retain Valued Employees
1:10 pm Discover: Boosting Employee Engagement, Retention & Performance a Quarter at a Time
Synopsis
- How CAI has driven a significant improvement in their voluntary retention rate by leveraging low tech tools, fostering meaningful conversations and measuring the impact of performance management
- How can you improve manager-employee relationships and engagement?
- How implementing simple, analogy tools to help managers engage and coach and employees own their performance really works
- Key elements of the system include quarterly conversations, engagement “stress cubes,” stay interviews, and skip-level meetings
1:30 pm Discover: Implementing OKR to Increase Employee Engagement
Synopsis
- How can we implement Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to engage and realign employees after a difficult period of restructuring and strategy changes?
- Set 50/50 top-down and bottom-up goals on a 3-month cadence
- How Omega Therapeutics got leadership buy-in for OKR, as well as the observed positive impact such as a significant decrease questions about priorities and increase employee motivation
1:50 pm Develop: How Else Can We Enhance the Engagement of Our Employees?
Synopsis
HR leaders in scaling businesses need to prioritize their compensation and total rewards strategy. 69% of employees in the life sciences sector consider competitive pay and benefits as the top factor for job satisfaction. Additionally, companies with robust total rewards programs are 1.5 times more likely to report higher employee engagement and retention rates.
This is a Q&A session designed to help you understand the ‘how’.
2:10 pm Action: How Are You Going to Enhance the Engagement of Your Employees?
Synopsis
- How can we motivate employees who are in single point sensitive roles?
- How can we motivate employees when we are limited financially?
- How can we drive momentum through exposure and scientific motivation rather than through financial incentive?
- How do we keep employees engaged with our companies journey even when we cannot offer them growth opportunities?
- How can we maintain engagement through periods of downturn and layoffs?
- How can we keep our long-term employees engaged so that we can retain them i.e. using various reward systems such as equity awards or long term incentives?
- How can we identify and lean on the intrinsic motivation of our employees i.e. scientific innovation, and use this to keep employees engaged?
This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your organization.
2:30 pm Networking Break
Cultivating a Successful Company Culture
2:50 pm Discover: Rebuilding Culture & Resilience During Challenging Times
Synopsis
- How can we rebuild the company culture and create a high-performance environment after significant layoffs?
- Foster belonging, transparency, and resilience among the remaining employees
- How Freeline are designing a culture of boldness, resilience, transparency, and principled behavior by forming a ‘Culture Club’ and leveraging virtual and in-person events to maintain connections and a positive work environment
3:10 pm Discover: Defining the ‘Future of Work’ & Using Culture to Bridge the Gap
Synopsis
- How can we embed culture into the organization’s operation practices
- Define the trends shaping the future of work and launch a culture assimilation experience
- How Regeneron are modifying their EVP using an omnichannel approach to better attract and retain the next generation of talent
3:30 pm Discover: Unlocking Culture Using a Sound Talent Strategy
Synopsis
- AbbVie's Talent Philosophy sets the expectations for how they lead and develop their employees and is central to our culture. We are clear in what our expectations of people leaders and employees
- AbbVie's Talent Philosophy is the foundation to their HR practices and programs, grounded in Performance, Behaviors Differentiation
4:10 pm Action: How Are You Going to Cultivate Your Companies’ Culture?
Synopsis
- How can we retain important aspects of our culture as we are scaling, how can we get ahead and set these into a cultural framework?
- How can we transmit our existing culture to new sites?
- How can we identify and adapt scalable parts of our culture to align with the new organization? How can we control the impact this has on our employee group?
- How can we communicate with employees and bring them on this journey with us as we grow while remaining transparent?
- How can we help employees to understand our mission as a company and get that alignment set?
- How can we communicate our culture into values and embed these behaviours into our organizations?
This is a roundtable discussion to put together an action plan to take back to your respective organization.