In early 2018 we launched the Biogen Elements, which define who we are, how we work and what we strive to be: Customer Focused, Inclusive, Pioneering, Agile, Accountable and Ethical. The Biogen Elements give shape to our company’s culture and promote a unified approach to our individual jobs – strengthening our mission, informing our leadership, expanding our impact and fueling our growth.

Our success depends on our ability to attract, develop and retain exceptional talent – people who embrace our mission to be pioneers in neuroscience. To produce cutting-edge therapies, we must encourage innovative thinking and agility, promote diversity and inclusion and foster a culture that protects the wellness and safety of our people.

This shows in the results of our most recent People Survey. Seventy-five percent of employees said they would recommend Biogen as a great place to work, which scored three percentage points above the global benchmark of 72 percent. Similarly, 86 percent of employees said they understand how their work contributes to Biogen’s success, which scored five points above the global benchmark of 81 percent. These results indicate a clear connection to how our employees feel about their work and our mission as an organization.

Our employees are not only passionate about how their work at Biogen may help improve lives, they are also engaged across a broad range of activities to improve our company’s work and role in the community, such as our Care Deeply Day, a volunteer day of service. Many Biogen employees at our manufacturing sites also participate in Communities of Practice (CoP), employee-led groups engaged in activities around a common interest. One such group is ourIMPACT, a CoP focused on furthering our environmental sustainability initiatives at Biogen. This group tackles issues such as reducing waste in the workplace through reuse programs, improving energy use in laboratories and bringing healthier and more climate-friendly meals into Biogen’s cafeterias.

Other examples of programs that show how we support and internally recognize behaviors that are linked to our culture are the Biogen CEO Elements Awards that celebrate and reward teams and individuals that have made significant contributions and accomplishments to Biogen’s strategy – and our annual Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) Awards that recognize employee efforts in four areas: safety, health & wellness, sustainability and resiliency.

We are honored to be recognized as a company of choice for employees. In 2018 Biogen was ranked #51 on the Forbes list of the World’s Best Employers and one of the Best Employers for Women at #38. On the Forbes’ 2018 list of America’s ‘Most JUST Companies’, we were #19 overall and #1 among 41 pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Read more about the Biogen Elements in our Spotlight Stories feature.

Learn more about our workplace community and talent philosophy at Working at Biogen.

Biogen is committed to bringing in a rich mix of talent into our organization, of all backgrounds and experiences, and assure that our employees reflect the communities we serve. We believe that having a diverse and inclusive workplace empowers our workforce, fosters innovation and helps us achieve better business results. It leads to better teamwork and collaboration, creates a climate of respect and trust, reinforces cultural competence and helps to drive success with our patients, providers and suppliers. 

Our approach to Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) relies on partnerships across the company, including our Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Council (DISC) – a governing body of employees that helps set overall D&I strategy and goals. DISC recently helped shape our new, multi-year D&I strategic focus where we hope to further strengthen our longstanding commitment to D&I by building inclusive talent systems fully aligned with the Inclusive Biogen Element, creating a culture of ownership and accountability where “Everyone Owns D&I” and driving health equity for underserved populations in the disease areas we treat.

Diversity is also essential in our business and is one of the keys to understanding the complex and varied needs of the patient communities who use our medicines. For example, nearly two-thirds of patients in two of our disease focus areas – MS and Alzheimer’s disease – are women. And the majority of caregivers are also women.

As a company, we must understand how to meet the needs of a patient community that is largely women, which is one reason why we focus on women in leadership roles. We also believe that working towards gender parity at all levels is critical to innovation. One way we support this is through our Women’s Leadership Program, a partnership with Babson College that cultivates high potential entrepreneurial women leaders. In 2018 women comprised half of our global employee population and held 44 percent of Biogen’s director-level and above positions.  

In addition, 22 percent of Biogen’s U.S. management (director-level and above) were ethnic or racial minorities in 2018. High potential mid-career underrepresented minorities participate in The Partnership, Inc.’s BioDiversity Fellows Program, supporting our efforts to build our talent pipeline with a rich and diverse mix of leaders.

Additionally, Biogen remains committed to taking actions to ensure all employees feel supported in the workplace. We scored 100% on the 2018 Disability Equality Index (DEI), putting us among America’s best places to work for disability inclusion. For five consecutive years, we’ve been recognized as the ‘Best Place to Work’ for LGBTQ Equality in the U.S. by the Human Rights Campaign, scoring 100% on the 2018 Corporate Equity Index. Biogen was also recognized in 2018 by Forbes Magazine for our leadership in diversity & inclusion.

Employee Resource Networks

Our Employee Resource Networks (ERNs) are internal groups for employees of shared characteristics, life experiences and interests. These networks provide opportunities to share knowledge, find mentors and receive support, all of which can be invaluable for career development. Allies, supporters and all those interested in helping to advance inclusion are welcome to join any ERN. Close to 30 percent of our global workforce is a member of one or more ERN.

Our current networks include:

• AccessAbility – Highlights our commitment to employees with disabilities and employees who are caretakers of individuals with disabilities
• Biogen Veterans Network (BVN) – Provides opportunities for veterans and allies of veterans to connect
• Mosaic – Focuses on fostering awareness and appreciation of different cultural backgrounds while promoting networking and development opportunities for members
• ReachOUT – Embraces LGBTQ employees and their allies by supporting a best-in-class working environment for LGBTQ employees
• Women’s Innovation Network (WIN) – Creates networking, mentoring and learning opportunities for women and allies worldwide

Read more about our efforts to support D&I in one of our local communities through our engagement in the Yes on 3 Campaign in Massachusetts in our Spotlight Stories feature.

Learn more about our D&I approach at Diversity & Inclusion.

Everyone at Biogen has a role to play in creating and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. We work hard to reduce risk and prevent injuries and other types of workplace health and safety incidents. Our employees are accountable for working safely, whether they spend most of their days in a lab, in a manufacturing plant, at a desk or in a car. We engage our employees to help us ensure our policies and practices support their and their colleagues’ well-being in addition to protecting surrounding communities.

In 2018 we made significant progress integrating Human Performance (Hu) into our EHS programs. Hu incorporates a ‘new view’ on safety, recognizing that workers are a part of the solution. Through practices such as Open Reporting and Work Observation and Risk Conversation (WORCs), employees collaboratively engage in proactive problem solving to enhance safety performance and manage risk. We believe our approach to Human Performance is changing the performance paradigm in our industry and beyond.

Because health and safety are important, we consistently track our performance to monitor our progress and, in 2018, implemented new leading indicators towards measuring safety as a capacity rather than a result. These indicators include evaluating proactive versus reactive activity trends, monitoring high risk training completion and tracking the age and completion of actions tied to higher risk events. We continue to track the frequency of work-related illnesses and injuries that lead to an absence from work through the Days Away Case Rate (DACR). In 2018 our Days Away Case Rate (DACR) and our Total Injury and Illness Rate were both below the industry average.  

Read more about our approach to Human Performance in our Spotlight Stories feature.