Sabine
Welcome to another episode of Cut the Chat. I’m Sabina Hutchison, and today we’re delving into a topic that resonates throughout our industry, regardless of the size of the organization. We’re exploring the intricate landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its dynamic interplay within the pharmaceutical and biotech realms. We often associate DE&I with gender. However, there are a multitude of topics that should be considered; religion, family status, education, nationality, or work background to name a few. The DE&I landscape is vast, intricate, and undeniably crucial. It’s a concept that’s embraced by many pharmaceutical giants and can be considered a nice-to-have by smaller biotech organizations. But why is that? And what can the smaller innovative and agile biotechs learn from the large pharmaceutical strategies?
In this episode, we’ll unravel the nuances of DE&I, navigating through the contrasting perspectives that exist within our industry. We’ll explore how DENI is much more than a buzzword, it’s a philosophy that can enrich the very fabric of our organizations, regardless of size.
As we embark on this journey, we’ll draw inspiration from the commitment of the pharmaceutical powerhouse, Pfizer, recognizing how they’ve prioritized DE&I. But we won’t stop there. We’ll dissect the barriers that smaller biotechs and startups might face and discuss ways to bridge the gap between aspiration and implementation. Join me as we uncover actionable strategies that can transform DE&I from a nice to have into a cornerstone of success.
Through real world examples from the insightful interview with Ben Osborne, who brings his expert perspective. Our goal is to provide you with some tools you need to drive meaningful change within your own organization. So buckle up, because we’re about to embark on a journey that we hope will reshape how you view diversity, equity, and inclusion in the biotech landscape. So let’s dive in. After graduating from Leeds University, Ben joined Pfizer in 1998, where his career has taken him through a variety of leadership roles, both in the UK and internationally.
In recent years, Ben served as IM Chief Commercial Officer across Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, where he led the digital transformation of the commercial organization and innovative partnerships across the sector. He is passionate about organizational culture and the purpose of ensuring patients benefit from breakthrough innovation in science. Ben was the UK Country Manager and Managing Director for Pfizer UK.
Leading the organization through unprecedented times of opportunity to bring science, data, and technology together to transform healthcare. He led the UK rollout of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine and antiviral, working closely with the government and the NHS.
In January of 2022, Ben was appointed the regional president hospital business for the IDM, the International Developed Markets Region. And then in July 2022, took on the role of president of the Europe Eastern Cluster of IDM.
From May 2021 to May 2022, Ben served as the president of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. He also represented the industry on a number of committees with government and NHS. And I personally have the pleasure of collaborating with Ben in his role as advisory board member of the EMEA Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association. And I’m so appreciative of his long-term continued commitment of supporting diversity and inclusion topics.
including the gender pay gap. Ben, it is such a pleasure to have you here today and I’m really looking forward to our chat.
Ben
Thanks for haing me.
Sabine
So Ben, we’ve had a couple of conversations, well, we’ve actually had lots of conversations around this topic, around DE&I, and had the idea, since we work, since Seuss+ works so closely with biotechs, how can organizations take some of the learnings from Pfizer and what you have done particularly on this topic and integrate it into their culture of the organization? And one of the conversations that we’ve had in the past was really about the why. You know, why D, E and I? And there are lots of views on this topic, right? Some people embrace it and really want to move forward with it, but there are also a lot of critics about on this topic. You know, they argue issues like reverse discrimination or tokenism, or is there true economic efficiency in this topic? And I’m really curious to hear about what you think about this and how you deal with some of these critics both internally and externally within your position.
Ben
Yeah, thanks to me. And thank you for inviting me along today. As you said, it’s a topic I’m really, really passionate about. And most of all, it really, really matters, not just to organizations, but most importantly, to the patients that we serve. And so I’m always a little bit flummoxed when I get this question, because for me, the responses, it’s, well, of course, it’s obvious, it’s just, it’s the right thing to do. But you know, I have over many years based lots of questions and challenge.
And I guess I’d break it down as follows. Most importantly, if you look at the role and purpose of healthcare, life science, biotech companies, it is to develop innovative medicines to treat patients across the world. And if we don’t understand the really, really diverse needs of those patients, then how can we develop those innovative medicines that they ultimately are going to rely on?
And so that’s where I always start from, that we need in our organizations to, as best we can, to reflect the diversity of the societies in which we’re there to serve. So that’s my starting point. I guess I’d add the following. You mentioned the economic side. Again, I mean, there’s so much literature on this. The study I always refer back to is one by McKinsey, which basically shows those organizations that prioritize diversity and inclusion and actually bring it to life. So it’s not just words on a paper, but they are on average 35% more profitable than those that don’t. Now, any organization I’m sure would love. to benefit from a 35% increase in profitability. Now we invest huge amounts of effort to try and get one or 2%. So I think that for me is a really key driver. The second is around employee attraction and retention. And we know now, particularly for some of the younger generations that are coming through, this is a really key factor in whether they want to come and work for an organization or not.
Sabine
Absolutely.
Ben
And for those colleagues that are already part of the organisation, whether they choose to stay or not. And so that’s a really, really important piece. And then finally, and again, I think this really speaks to the fantastic work that comes out of many biotechs, is the complexity of the scientific challenge that we face now and the healthcare problems that we’re trying to address. are not straightforward. If they were, we would have addressed them many, many years back. And that requires real diversity of thought, of opinion, of viewpoint, in order to really progress the scientific data forward. So, you know, I guess I bring that to a point of, we will not be able to innovate with the transformation and the level of progression that we really need if we don’t have diversity in our organizations.
And it’s not just diversity, it’s the inclusion as well, and making sure that all of those colleagues’ voices are heard within the company.
Sabine
Ben, it’s so true. It’s interesting, this last point is the inclusion piece, that if you can hire diverse individuals within the team, but if you actually don’t listen to their voices and actually include them in the dialogue, it’s also obviously not beneficial. And I love the points that you’ve raised. The economic piece, you write about the 35%, every company. It’s so true if we get a few percent, but 35% is a huge benefit. And also this idea, Our industry is all about innovation and innovation requires creativity and new ideas. And again, if you have a diverse mindset at the table, that is only going to foster innovation. So it’s so true. Sometimes those conversations can be difficult because the more diverse people you bring in, they’re going to challenge you. But I think that that, again, is the point of strong leadership and strong organizations is that they actually welcome that challenge. So, yeah, great points.
Ben
Yeah, and you know, just a quick example, you know, at the heart of a guess, what all of our companies do, whether you’re the smallest biotech or one of the biggest pharma companies, is clinical trials. And so I genuinely believe, and we’ve seen that time and time again in our organisation, if you do not have diversity of opinion and understanding of the different populations that you’re aiming to treat, at the point that you are designing those clinical trials
Sabine
Right?
Ben
And then trying to take them to the clinic, you will not be successful. You’ve got to have that diversity upfront. And of course, the benefit then is really, really significant. It’s significant in that you get the diversity of population into the clinical trial to have a broader data set. You then, through the regulatory process, hopefully get a broader label, treat more patients. And ultimately, again, that speaks to then the economic benefit for companies that they’re able to bring their medicines to more patients.
Sabine
Yeah, absolutely. And I think again, to that point too, with the clinical trials piece, we see it as well, that there’s so much focus now on bringing those diverse populations and making sure that you’re looking at a broad group of patients in the clinical trials. And I know organizations are doing a lot to ensure that happens.
And again, to the point, diversity is that, if you look at the, it’s kind of the bedrock of all of this, isn’t it, to bring in those ideas and the innovation. Yeah, thanks. One of the other things, especially with smaller organizations, and particularly we’re focusing today on biotechs, is that, you know, as I said in the beginning, they can sometimes see this as a nice to have. You know, they’re thinking about, okay, I’ve got an asset, I maybe just have one, I need to get it to the clinic, I need to move it forward. I don’t have time. And this, yeah, diversity and inclusion, of course, it’s a topic that’s relevant.
But maybe I do, you know, it’s not something that I need to get to the next stage of my asset development or the next round of fundings, or I don’t have the financial background, I have limited funding, I don’t have resources. Pharmacy, Pfizer of course has a large pool of individuals and there’s a lot of focus and financial backing for this topic. And how do you address that point? What can you do with a small budget? to ensure that you’re including a diversity inclusion culture within your organization.
Ben
Yeah, sure. No, no. Great, great question. I mean, I would go back to the why. I think you can’t afford not to address this. But I think that the real point here is at the heart of great diversity and inclusion within an organization is a great culture, where DEI is absolutely part of the way that an organization works and behaves. And
genuinely believe that culture is driven by the words and behaviors of leaders and colleagues and not by pounds and dollars. You can have an incredible culture in an organization with the most limited of financial budgets.
Equally, I’m sure we’ve all had experiences of where we’ve seen organizations that have been absolutely awash with cash, but their culture is absolutely terrible or they’ve not been. as diverse or as inclusive as they should be. So I don’t think that diversity inclusion has to come from big economic investment and OPEX. I think really it’s about getting that culture right. And so for us at Pfizer, it comes down to one with a very, very simple, but impactful word of equity. And for us, that means that every single colleague is seen heard and cared for across the globe. And they’re not words that we say lightly or just words on a page. They are words that we actively bring to life every day, every week that we’re working. Now, that said, you know, I recognize that, you know, many small biotechs, you know, they may only have a handful of colleagues, you know, less than 10 colleagues in some cases.
I think the important piece here is to recognize If you’ve only got 10 colleagues in the organization, you are not necessarily going to be able to represent every single voice or patient across the society which you’re ultimately aiming to serve. It’s just not possible. There’s more than 10 groups we want to serve if you’ve only got 10 there for please. So the first and most important thing is that you recognize where your gaps or where your blind spots may be. and then take action to address those. So for instance, if you don’t have as much racial balance in your organization as you should do, what are the steps that you can take to try and build deeper understanding of some of those ethnic minority groups that ultimately you want to be serving? There are many, many ways in which you can reach out to communities, into our societies.
And I don’t mean through market research, but just reaching out to have very simple conversation with leaders in society to understand how you can better understand the needs of those populations. We saw this during the government rollout with the vaccine. There were certain ethnic minority groups that were really vaccine hesitant. Now that wasn’t going to be addressed through big… investment advertising campaigns, actually that was through speaking to those individuals that were trusted in those societies and communities, religious leaders, leaders in schools that were going to be able to educate their communities. And that worked really, really successfully. It didn’t require any investments at all. It required a little bit of time and some careful thoughts and words. So again, it doesn’t always have to come back to the pounds or the dollars.
I think it’s about recognizing where you’ve got gaps and then trying to address that. I think the other piece is you can’t do everything at once. So this has been a journey that we’ve been on as an organization for many years, but I would say in particular over the last five years, we’ve really, really made this a priority globally as well as here in the UK.
And I think… For smaller organizations, it’s about making some priority decisions to say, okay, let’s really try and address this aspect of diversity. May it be the gender gap, may it be looking at sexual orientation, difference of opinion. There are many different groups that obviously we need to understand and to bring into our organizations. So work through and focus on a couple of those. Don’t try solving everything at once. I think there are three things, though, that ultimately we should really make sure any organization has for their DEI strategy. It’s got to be really simple and clear, because if it’s not, colleagues won’t engage and understand the importance of it. Secondly, it has to empower colleagues. This cannot just be a top-down leadership voice. It is the responsibility of colleagues. every single colleague in the organisation. And thirdly, organisations need to support and trust colleagues to bring their true authentic self to work. And I think when you get that, you get the real person in the organisation, that’s when you get the real inclusion.
Sabine
Yeah, such a valid point. And then this triggers me to maybe to look at, you talked about simple and also easy. So first of all, simply to understand, but also to implement. And I know one of the programs that you’ve actually been recognized for is the UK gender pay gap initiative that Pfizer has taken on. And you said, don’t do it. You can’t do everything at once, so do simple things. And so potentially even, you may not consider it as a DE&I initiative, but the pay gap within your organization. So you’re hiring, so it starts there. And that’s one of the most simple things that you can do is ensure that when you bring individuals on, that you’re hiring for merit and experience and not necessarily for obviously gender or… some of the other topics that we raised, ethnic background and religion, or making sure that everyone’s on a level playground.
Ben
Yeah, I think it’s a really critical part of a DEI strategy is the recruitment side. You know, from my experience, when I was in the UK role, gender pay gap when I first came in was 15.9%. And when I asked the question what the trajectory was, you know, how long that was going to take to solve, if we’d have taken no action, the natural development of that would have meant it would have taken around 60 to 65 years to address. Now, I was not going to wait 65 years for that to happen. So we set about doing a number of very clear actions, but at the heart of that was our recruitment strategy.
And I’d call out two key things, again, that I think are relatable to any organization. One was actually making sure that the role profile that you’re developing is actually relatable and attracting the diversity that you want into your organization. And in this case, we were specifically trying to address our gender pay gap and to attract more females into director and above roles. What we found is actually some of the language that we’re using, such as pursue aggressive growth strategies, that word aggressive was not relatable for the majority of females. We were also putting in, you know, ideally 15 to 20 years farmer experience. Well, many women were looking at that and saying, either I don’t have 15 to 20 years, or I kind of have that, but I took two lots of maternity leaves, so it’s not really 15.
And it was putting them off the roll. So we use a very simple gender decoding tool that is accessible online. and there are multiple of these tools. And we now ensure that every single one of our role profiles goes through that tool. And essentially that takes out the words, the statement sentences that may put off females from applying. And it is remarkable, you know, I know from the role profiles that I wrote, I didn’t think I had a bias towards particular words.
but I clearly did. And I’ve now learned there are particular words that I shouldn’t be using. And so we make sure everyone does that. The second point then after the role profile is making sure that the interview panel and process is as fair and transparent and balanced as possible. So for us, that means using a very standard set of questions. so that everybody is asked at least the core of the interview, the same questions in the same way and given equal opportunity to respond back. Now, of course, we put some other questions around that to dive into people’s experience, but we are really assessing people in a very fair and balanced way. And we make sure that our interview panels are always balanced from a gender perspective. So we don’t have any all-male or all-female panels. They are always balanced in the way that we conduct our hiring. And again, I think both of those steps can be applied to the smallest biotech or one of the biggest pharma companies.
Sabine
Yep, yep, absolutely. And I think that those are just two, fairly simple things to do. They can take a bit more time in the beginning. It’s like with anything, I think that, when we step out of our habits, it can take a bit more time initially when we adapt processes. But as we incorporate that and have that just be a standard way of working, that you have your role description and you use some of the tools. You’re right, there are fantastic tools online that individuals can use to check. And maybe we’ll, just for everyone listening, we’ll add a few examples of those in some of the notes after the podcast and share some of that. But also very simple thing to do. And to your point about the interview process as well, I think again, so many individuals go and interview people and we’ve all never really been trained, have we? Many people have not been trained to do interviews. And so one of the things that we encourage too as our clients is we actually have a list. of questions and a form that’s used and you actually score an individual on the set questions, then you have a much more unbiased comparison when you sit together and you review the panel then refuse the individual. You can say, I’ve rated the individual at this number and these are the reasons why I have, and you’re all comparing the same questions. And I think that is again, something simple. But so many people just, you don’t go. You run last minute into an interview and pull a CV open and start asking random questions. And that doesn’t lead to a very structured process and able to evaluate individuals equally. So really valid point.
Ben
It’s a great example and I’ve seen that in practice where you’ve had a particularly extroverted interviewer in terms of their character, their nature, interviewing someone who’s very quiet, much more subdued, much more introverted. They didn’t necessarily gel and warm in terms of the communication, but when we looked at the data and the response that the candidate gave. it was the strongest of all of them. So, you know, without that much more focused and clear scoring, there was a potential bias there just because of the character of the hiring manager.
Sabine
Yeah. Ben, you mentioned in one of our, in our previous conversations as well, you were talking about that there’s some people ask the question or give the feedback that the individual is not, doesn’t, um, fit, have a team fit or fit into, um, uh, the team dynamics. Or I’ve forgotten exactly how you phrase that, but you said that is actually one of the worst questions that you can ask because you want individuals to be more diverse and to bring. Yeah, their own authentic self into the organization and that can be so valuable.
Ben
Yeah, I banned that question of Team Fit because I think for so many years, people were looking at that from the lens of how similar to me or we are they? And they were essentially looking to hire mini-me’s of similar characteristics, similar leadership traits, similar beliefs, et cetera. That is the polar opposite of what we now need in life science companies.
We need real diversity of opinion. We need, you know, I want within my leadership team, the teams that I’m a part of, people to be challenging, people to be having different perspectives. Because if we don’t have that debate, we are really, really not going to address some of these really challenging problems. And we’ll end up wandering into decisions, you know, because we’ve just all been furious in agreement with each other, and they weren’t necessarily the right decisions to make.
So. that diversity of opinion is absolutely critical and making sure as you look across your team, there are people that you wouldn’t necessarily naturally feel are like you. Those are the real individuals you want in your team. You want that difference.
Sabine
Absolutely. And also on this point, because we’re, you know, we’re focusing a bit on, yeah, the brand and how important that is for of an organization for potential employees to come in. And we’re seeing that more and more. And one of the things that you listed is we talked about the roles. how to make sure that those are diverse and that are going to attract a diverse group of applicants. But how do you actually hit more targets of cultures or individuals? Because you can have a diverse role, and you can advertise the role on your job, on your website. But are there any other tips or tricks that you have? to actually attract a more diverse culture and hit more demographics when you’re looking to bring individuals on. Again, kind of focusing on a biotech that has a bit more limited resources.
Ben
Yes, we believe trust is everything in our industry and in our sector. Without trust, we won’t attract the right employees, we won’t retain the right employees. Without trust, we won’t engage with our physicians in the right way, we won’t be able to establish the clinical trials in the right way. We won’t engage with the regulators and governments around the world, and most importantly, ultimately patients won’t… won’t trust us. So trust has to run through the organisation and be a central part of the DEI strategy and plan. I think in terms of the tips or tricks etc, for me it comes down to two things. One is really clear as I said at the beginning on what are the gaps that you are looking to address in your organisation. So don’t you know start off with ten.
You may have 10 gaps, but choose one or two of those and really, really go at them. But also recognize you aren’t necessarily going to address this over a short period of time. This will take a sustained effort. To get our gender pay gap from 15.9 to 7.5%, that took us three years. We then had a bump the next year actually where it went up. That’s not because we were doing anything wrong, it’s just it was the nature of the organization during that year.
And you need to really, really stay the course. And I think that then speaks to perhaps one of the most important things is to be really clear on the data that you need to collect and you need available in your organization to be able to assess your progress. Whether that be hard numbers of your gender balance in your organization, or whether it be some of the… often perceived as softer data, but some of that engagement data with colleagues. So, you know, how can you run some very simple surveys through the year to do those little pulse checks with your organization to see how they’re feeling? Do they feel included? Do they feel that their voice is heard? Again, things like that take very, very little time. It costs very little, if anything. Now…
with some of the online survey services that are available. But it requires the thought of a leader or a leadership team to put that in place and make that a priority, not just to put the survey out there, but to then come back and commit to action based on what that data is showing us. And no one can argue with the data. If your organization is telling you you’ve not got strong colleague engagement, You need to listen, you need to act on that.
Sabine
That is so true. I think regardless of the size of an organization, to keep your finger on the pulse of what individuals are feeling is relevant, regardless of its 5, 10, or 10,000 employees within the organization. And to your point, it’s a really interesting point that you raised, to do these kind of surveys and to check the pulse. I believe that often smaller organizations…
don’t necessarily think about doing that. They just are moving on, they’re small, they’re like, okay, we have a lot of dialogue with each other, we’re close. I know what everyone is feeling. But a survey can actually give someone a bit of freedom to share what they’re really feeling. So I think that that’s again, a very valid, simple thing to do to check the pulse of the organization regardless of the size.
Ben
think the other I think the other piece that you know, for leaders of organisations is to take some time, you know, each week 1015 minutes just to reflect back on the week that you’ve had I tend to do this action on a Friday. I tend to shine keep the diary a bit freer, to have a bit of a reflection period on not for me, it’s not just about the diversity of other topics. But where were the moments this week where perhaps you weren’t as inclusive or you had the opportunity to be more inclusive. Where were the moments that you could have made more of an impact? And just reflect on those so that the following week, okay, if that moment arises again, you can address that. I think in this world, you know, we work at such fast pace. Weeks roll into months and before you know it, the year is done. And so just taking that 10, 15 minutes each week to reflect, I think can lead to some small micro steps and changes in culture, changes in language and behaviors that really, really make the difference.
Sabine
And that’s one of the things that you shared is looking at KPIs and what do we measure. And that’s also a very simple thing to measure, isn’t it? And within the leadership team, the CEO takes time in the management meeting and says, all right, let’s everyone think about what are the situations that happened this week and how can we do those better? Simple and very easy to implement. Yeah.
Ben
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And that voice, it’s amazing. That will quickly, quickly spread. You know, the rest of the organization will quickly hear that that’s what’s happening at the leadership team. And it’s amazing how such a simple action can then have a really powerful change in the view of colleagues.
Sabine
You’re absolutely right, just asking that question when you’re having a weekly update with one of your employees, what went well this week and what could you have done better if you reflect on, was I inclusive this week and everything that I did, not only internally within the organization, but also to the point around patients, around vendors that you work with, around, it’s a ripple, it goes far beyond just sometimes the small organization that we’re in. So true. Ben, I could go on for hours on this topic with you. Yeah, I think our goal was in this conversation is to really pull out a couple of nuggets and a couple of simple things to start the journey. As you said, you need to start with one or two things, take steps, start taking some action, and then have that become just more of a an aspect and a culture of the organization, this diversity piece and also the inclusive piece, which is so, so crucial. So I just want to thank you, Ben, for everything that you do. You know, I see you are an individual that actually, you don’t just talk the talk, you walk the walk. And I appreciate the time that you always give, for instance, the HBA, the time that you’ve given me and the podcast today too, Topics, because who would have thought, you know, our podcast around biotechs that I would pull Pfizer in, but I think that this conversation has been very valuable and we can really learn.
You know, Pfizer has done amazing things on this topic and I’m excited to see what the future holds as well, because I’m sure more and exciting things are going to be happening there as well.
Ben
Excellent, thank you, it’s been a real pleasure and ultimately we owe it to our patients to get this right and when we get it right in our organisations, the impact will be felt across all of the patients that we serve.
Sabine
Thanks, Ben. And as we head off into the weekend, enjoy. Wishing some nice weather and some relaxing time. And I know you like to run, so hopefully you get some good runs in over the weekend.