Career Development is Key to Keeping Talent in Life Sciences Industry

LONDON, July 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Employees at life sciences companies are becoming disengaged and looking to leave as career ambitions outweigh internal opportunities.  

According to the industry employee engagement report, based on a survey of 1400 respondents compiled by life science staffing agency ProClinical, high engagement among new employees is driven by career development. This engagement declines over time to the point where employees plan to move on as current employers fail to offer further progression.

The report on employee engagement at pharmaceutical, medical device, biotechnology and clinical research organizations, found that engagement is as high as 71% among employees in their first 6 months of service, however this falls to 59% for workers employed for 3-5 years - the same period in which employees are most likely to leave. During this 3-5 year 'danger zone' only 39% of employees see themselves working at the same company in 12 months' time, compared with 65% for employees in their first 6 months. The figure decreases gradually with 50% for staff employed 6-12 months and 43% for workers who have been with their current employer for 1-3 years. Interestingly, engagement increases again to 45% for those employed for longer than 5 years.

When asked what they thought had the most influence on their engagement at work, 18% of respondents said that career support and development opportunities offered by their employer influenced their engagement more than anything else, including recognition (13%), being paid fairly (8%) and their relationship with line management (8%). Although career development made the top of employees 'wish-list', only 39% of workers stated their satisfaction with development opportunities available to them within their current company.

Richard Thomas, Client Services Director at ProClinical commented: "One of the challenges that our clients often face is the loss of productivity and mounting costs when having to replace key personnel. The most successful companies that we work with take a proactive approach to development, focussing on succession planning and utilising personal development plans and secondments to give employees opportunities to develop. Those employers are the ones who not only retain employees for longer but set themselves apart when it comes to attracting the best talent too."

The survey also found that staff are the most career-driven between 6-12 months of employment, a quarter of whom said that this was their biggest motivator. However, career-driven motivation drops to 18% for those employed between 1-3 years and decreases further to just 15% by the 3-5-year period. Only 14% of individuals employed for more than 5 years said that career development affected their engagement the most. The change, coupled with the crossing of the 3-5 year 'danger zone', suggests that ambitious workers not given opportunities to develop have already left by this point, and those who remain are more motivated by other factors.

For further details, insights and statistics, download the ProClinical Employee Engagement Report.

Media contact:
Peter Hogg, Global Marketing Manager
Phone: +44(0)2030789577
Email: p.hogg@proclinical.com