Pharma Needs to Focus on Social Responsibility to Attract Talent
Many people see the pharmaceutical industry as a business that can improve the lives of countless people around the world, yet the industry’s reputation has taken a hit in recent years. The public narrative has a painted the pharmaceutical industry as self-serving which has affected the ability of companies to attract high quality talent. Focusing on world health and social responsibility can help heal public opinion of pharma, attract better talent to the industry, and improve retention rates. Here are some of the ways pharmaceutical companies can focus on social responsibility to attract talent.
How Are You Contributing to World Health?
Most companies have a specific drug, disease, or therapeutic area that they focus on. Painting a compelling narrative about your focus and showing the research you perform to contribute to world health would go a long way. Most CEOs and CIOs are drawn to the pharmaceutical industry because they had a family member who had a specific disease and they wanted to help others who had the disease. Tell your story. Cancer is one area that attracts talent because many people have a personally connection to someone who died from cancer or beat it. Hepatitis is another important focus right now because recent work in pharma has improved outcomes in the area of hepatitis.
Focus on Employees
Successful companies are focusing more on their employees and the communities in which they live. Employees want to work for a company that allows them to engage with their family and their community. Supporting science fairs and other events is one way to increase your community involvement. If employees see that you genuinely want to help the community, it will help improve your company’s reputation.
Give to Causes You Care About
The best talent wants to work for a company that shares their humanitarian values. If you donate to causes that you care about and publicize your philanthropy, you will not only attract better talent, you will likely attract more customers as well. Use this as part of your narrative. You want to attract earned media. If you publicize your charitable acts in your own publication, you won’t expand your reach. If you can generate social media and word-of-mouth buzz, you will reach a larger audience and do more to improve your reputation. Take the time to understand your audience so you can connect with them on a more meaningful level.
Public opinion about pharma has suffered in recent years. While repairing a bad reputation is never easy, the pharmaceutical industry has a key advantage—the work they do helps millions of people all over the world. To improve your reputation and appeal to prospective employees, work on community engaging and creating a story showcasing how the work your company performs helps people.
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