Your brilliant people make an amazing difference to patients, often when they need it most. But even when you have such a powerful purpose, keeping everyone informed, involved and inspired can be difficult. Especially so against a backdrop of remote workers, geographically distributed teams working in fast-paced environments and in highly regulated therapy areas.
We work with Pharmaceutical, MedTech and Healthcare organisations to help their people work together more effectively, wherever they are and whatever their role.
Every organisation is different. Your teams might be researching and working on new medical entities with life-changing indications, manufacturing medicines, developing medical devices or delivering frontline care.
We help you keep your colleagues connected to the wider organisation, support leaders through change and understand what your workforce really thinks. Precisely what we do and how we do it will be driven by your organisation’s needs and the challenges you face.
We work with:
- Pharmaceutical companies
- MedTech organisations
- Healthcare providers
- Life sciences organisations
Why employee engagement and experience matter in Pharma, MedTech & Healthcare
Working in Pharma, MedTech and Healthcare presents different challenges, but there are sometimes themes everyone might recognise:
- People are often working across different countries, cultures, time zones and functions. That can mean highly specialised teams working towards the same wider goals, but with very different day-to-day priorities
- In healthcare organisations, frontline and non-clinical teams can have very different experiences of the same organisation
- Regulation shapes how things get done, while scientific advances and new technology continue to change established ways of working
- Restructures, mergers and transformation programmes always create uncertainty and opportunity
- Organisations are competing for specialist talent, making talent retention an ongoing challenge.
Employee engagement for regulated industries brings its own challenges, particularly in Pharma and MedTech. Good internal communications and an outstanding employee experience aren’t just nice-to-haves.
People need to understand what is changing and why. They need leaders they trust and opportunities to have their say. This is a sector that really does need a culture where people feel able to speak up in an environment of true psychological safety.
Get that right and you can build stronger teams, support talent retention and create an organisation where colleagues are more than willing to contribute, collaborate and adapt.
Supporting people across Pharma, MedTech & Healthcare
Pharma has been a major part of our work for over two decades, alongside our extensive experience in MedTech and Healthcare. We’ve helped organisations connect people across research, manufacturing, commercial and healthcare environments, often spanning multiple countries, cultures and specialist teams.
This experience gives us a strong understanding of the challenges of working in highly regulated, specialist sectors. But we also know that every setting is different. We start by understanding what’s happening in yours, then bring together the right people from Axiom and tailor our support around what you specifically need most.
The result is practical support that works in the real world, with a clear idea of what you want to change and how you’ll know if it’s working.
Help change land with your people
A new operating model. A merger or a restructure. New technology or tighter regulatory requirements. Change in Pharma, MedTech and Healthcare can come from many directions.
We help you involve the right people, answer the questions they actually have and build internal engagement campaigns and communication that help new ways of working stick.
Give your leaders the skills to engage their teams
In Pharma, MedTech and Healthcare, people often move into leadership roles because they are very good at what they do. But leading people calls for a very different set of skills.
Our leadership development programmes help create better, more inspiring senior teams and provide practical ways to lead teams and create a culture where people feel comfortable speaking up.
Sharing the bigger picture
When people are busy with their own roles and priorities, it can be difficult to see how everything fits together.
Our Big Picture approach brings your wider strategy to life across your organisation, helping teams see where their work fits in and why their contribution matters.
Do you really know what your people think?
The experience of working for the same organisation can vary enormously between teams, sites and roles.
We go beyond the scores and employee feedback from your internal surveys to understand what your people really think and why, then help you turn those insights into action.
Harness a variety of different perspectives
Specialist teams and leaders won’t always see things in the same way, particularly when they come from different or newly merged parts of the organisation.
Our facilitators help people work through different points of view, have the conversations that are needed and find a way forward.
Bring people together, wherever they are
For global and multi-site organisations, there are times when getting people together really matters.
Whether you’re sharing a new strategy, bringing leaders together or starting a major change programme, we create live, virtual and hybrid events that give people a reason to listen, get involved and take action.
Develop the skills your organisation needs next
Technical expertise matters enormously in Pharma, MedTech and Healthcare, but people also need additional core skills to work well together.
Our learning and development offering includes more than 60 skills and wellbeing workshops. We can tailor a programme around your people’s needs, from communication and people management to resilience and wellbeing.
Know what’s working – and what isn’t
You need to know whether the work you’re doing to engage your people is actually working and delivering ROI. We help you look at what’s changed, what hasn’t and what that tells you about where to focus next.
We can help you improve your business metrics by putting carefully crafted activities in place and tracking their success over time and by audience.
Let’s talk – we’re communicators after all
If you would like to better engage your people and would value an outside perspective, book a free discovery call with one of our experts.
Employee engagement in action: Pharma, MedTech & Healthcare case studies
How a global engagement campaign helped more than 10,000 HARTMANN employees get behind the company’s long-term goals
Bringing Mölnlycke Health Care employees together behind a shared strategy
Helping AstraZeneca engage, inspire and develop people across the organisation
How listening to employees uncovered important truths and helped shape the future of a newly formed team
”Mention 'strategy', and people’s eyes usually glaze over. We worked with Axiom on a Big Picture - a learning map that really engaged our people around the issues we are facing, the changes we need to make and the strategic direction we need to take.
This visual aid, which had resonance for a global audience, has stuck in people’s minds far longer than any words could. It was a great tool for our leaders to use with their teams to roll out the messages and the action plan, and to provide an appetite to make change happen.
Axiom also worked with us to create and deliver a series of one-day workshops in several global locations to equip line managers with practical tips and techniques on how to communicate effectively with their teams. The feedback was exceptional and we have seen a real difference in the way managers operate.
Lisa Blockley, Director of Communications, Research and Development, AstraZeneca
Pharma, MedTech & Healthcare engagement FAQs
Can you help organisations working in highly regulated sectors?
Yes. We appreciate that people need to work safely and within specific guardrails. Working in partnership with our clients, we help deliver the best possible outcomes within the rules and regulations that guide the way.
Our teams are spread across different countries and functions. Can you help bring them together?
100% we can. The vast majority of our clients in Pharma, MedTech and Healthcare work in virtual, globally distributed teams across a variety of time zones. We’ve developed a number of techniques to overcome this hurdle and even turn it into a competitive advantage.
We already carry out employee surveys. What would Axiom do differently?
It’s good that you conduct employee opinion surveys; we do too! They give you a lot of data telling you ‘what’ people think about specific topics at a high level, but not necessarily ‘why’ they think that way. As an independent third party, we drill deeper, below the headlines, to truly understand the ‘lived experience’ of groups of colleagues. We then co-create actions to build on what is going well and address areas where participants feel things are coming up short.
Can you support a single project rather than a long-term programme?
Definitely. We work on standalone projects as well as longer-term programmes. We are passionate about making a difference in Pharma, MedTech & healthcare because what you do in this sector really matters. The difference we make might be with an entire global organisation; it might be with a single therapy area or indication; or it might be with a small specialist team working on a rare disease. What unites all of them resonates with us too, making a positive impact for patients with an unmet medical need… who are waiting.