Advance

In 2020, Alexion named its first Chief Diversity Officer. We are building DI&B initiatives that are broad in scope, specific in action and measurable in results. For example, we have built a “DI&B Innovation Factory” composed of 7% of our global workforce to produce bold diversity programs at a rapid pace. We are rethinking clinical trial diversity efforts. We also organized our employee resource groups around the intersectionality of shared experiences to broaden existing coalitions and deliver greater impact.

In 2020, we piloted seven DI&B training modules in multiple languages that will roll out across the organization in early 2021. These are on-demand, mobile-accessible, and bite-sized learning modules, which may be accessed by any employee at any time. After employees complete the training, they are encouraged to attend a debrief session to continue the conversation and apply the learnings.

In response to COVID-19, Alexion ramped up our IT infrastructure so employees could more easily  work from home and virtualized our onboarding process, intern programs, LEAP (Learn, Evolve, Activate and deliver for Patients) offerings and our Manager Development Program. 

The pandemic  also inspired us to launch weekly Pulse Surveys to learn how people felt about working from home or being on-site as essential employees during the pandemic. We took steps to ease employees’ anxieties expressed through these surveys, including covering 100% of U.S. COVID-19 testing and treatment, launching the You & Your Wellbeing center on our intranet and encouraging employees to take time off as needed. 

In 2020, Alexion laid the groundwork for furthering our support of Brain Health. Brain Health means more than mental health. It includes the broader physical, emotional and social factors that impact our well-being. Brain Health helps everyone feel motivated, safe and empowered to make purposeful and productive choices. In 2021, we will more fully build our capacity through an integration of resources and trainings that will create a long-lasting environment where employees may feel and perform at their best.

At Alexion, patients are our inspiration and our Guiding Star. They are the purpose behind our work and at the heart of everything we do. This is at the core of our culture, one where team members can make a meaningful impact and know their contributions matter every day.

In 2020, we made strong progress along our three cultural priorities:

• Enabling a culture of innovation through deeply understanding the patient journey and creating a more patient-centric mindset.
• Building world-class leadership capabilities to strengthen our values.
• Enhancing our employee experience.

Highlights from our annual Guiding Star Culture Survey include:

• Our employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), a measure of employee loyalty, increased 19.1 points since 2019 and 62.5 points since 2017.
• Scores improved across all metrics, including a 9% increase in favorability for most rewarding company to work for.
• Other notable achievements included a 15% increase in Alexion’s commitment to the well-being of employees and a 10% increase in employees feeling recognized when they contribute positively to the patient experience.

In 2020, Alexion launched the Rare Leader Development Portfolio, an integrated suite of programs and tools, organized into several delivery categories: self-directed learning, focused development programs and experiences, coaching and assessments, and development tools and best practices. This portfolio approach enables our leaders to thrive in the complexity of the rare disease landscape.

Beyond formal training programs, we’ve set the expectation that employees should have performance development conversations with their supervisors at least once a quarter, instead of yearly reviews.

Our investment in leadership development and our agility in times of crisis have had a clear impact on the stability of our organization and our bottom line. We enhanced some of our strategic leadership and talent processes, including succession planning and identification of business continuity and critical roles, and high potential employees to ensure we continue to build our leadership capacity and capabilities.

Protecting the health and safety of our colleagues and communities where we operate is essential in living our corporate values. Alexion employees and contractors are covered under our EHS Policy, which is implemented through our global EHS management system and accompanying EHS Standards Manual, the health and safety portion of which is informed by ISO 45001. Our EHS management system and manual go above and beyond compliance in many areas and serve as minimum standards for environmental performance and maintaining a healthy and safe workplace.

Alexion emphasizes proactive health and safety metrics and targets such as corrective/preventative actions, leadership walks and potential serious injury and fatality rate. We accentuate these preventive measures rather than setting targets against the reduction of incident rates, which may have the unintended consequence of dissuading some employees from reporting near misses or actual incidents.