A pharmaceutical and biotechnology business operating in five continents, Roche Products in Aotearoa New Zealand is committed to changing patients’ lives through access to innovative medicines. In 2024, an impressive 97% of Roche’s team say that it is a great workplace. How is this achieved? Great Place To Work® spoke to General Manager Alexander Muelhaupt and Director of People and Culture Jocelyn Reinhard to find out.
Although Roche has surveys done globally, it needed something more specific applicable to the New Zealand market. “We did our research and looked at the different providers and who would meet our needs,” Jocelyn says. “We needed to measure our success and understand how we are doing as an organisation in New Zealand, to improve our employee experience and attract and retain talent locally.”
After assessing all their options, Jocelyn and Alex decided Great Place To Work was the best fit because:
“What attracted me about Great Place To Work was it was more about direct feedback from our people on how we show up as an organisation, as leaders, and how we interact with our peers. We developed a new parental leave policy and Great Place To Work was one of the many data sources we used to see how it landed from a cultural and employee engagement standpoint,” Jocelyn says.
How then did the survey results help Roche to build its people strategy?
I would highly recommend the survey as a source of information that allows you to get further insights around where we can further enhance the experience and impact for our teams. We use it as an enabling tool to guide us on how we can create the right environment for our people. – Alex Muelhaupt, General Manager
Leaders at Roche looked at the results of the first survey in 2023 and pulled the feedback from their employees to help set their People Priorities for 2024. Openness and clarity were at the core of what they wanted to create in Roche’s culture.
“We thought about how we show up as leaders, how we communicate to our teams collectively and individually, how we answer questions we receive from the team. We did a few retrospectives as an enabling team to see how we could show up differently. What do we want to see in our teams? What do we want to hear? How do we want people to feel? We were very conscious of that,” Jocelyn says.
One way they boosted clarity was ensuring the Roche Team were clear on their focus areas and the organisational priorities and measuring these more regularly. “We were more intentional about breaking down priorities and being clear on how we’re tracking for each of those on a monthly basis – so the team can clearly see. It’s transparency,” Jocelyn says.
The result? From 2023 to 2024, employees at Roche shifted their responses positively towards trusting that Roche’s leaders deliver on their promises (from 79% to 95%), and that executives fully embody Roche’s characteristics (from 82% to 92%).
The survey reflects not just how the leaders show up as leaders, but also as individuals and part of their teams. It shows how teams interact and collaborate. Everyone has ownership and accountability in creating a great workplace.
Feedback can be tricky to navigate, with people wanting to preserve close-knit relationships at work, not wanting to hurt someone else’s feelings, or being more aware about sensitivities that other colleagues may have. To support this, Roche provided training sessions on giving and receiving feedback that 100% of employees attended.
“Everybody starts with the same foundation. As leaders we are thinking about how to create an environment where giving, receiving and asking for feedback can thrive. How do we continue to provide clarity and be transparent on expectations? It allows us to lead by example; we demonstrate what good feedback looks like and how we give and ask for feedback,” Jocelyn explains.
“We have an environment where people feel valued, they feel safe to speak up. They learn from each other and feedback is a part of it. You’re not learning if nobody ever gives you feedback,” Alex adds.
There is incredible transparency about company priorities, and opportunities to contribute views about these priorities. – Roche New Zealand employee
Openness and clarity has helped strengthen Roche’s internal and external partnerships.
“Internally with our (sister) diagnostic organisation, we have been collaborating, trying new things, sharing our resources and knowledge, doing joint events, inviting people over. That has created really strong working relationships. It doesn’t feel like two organisations anymore,” Alex reflects.
Externally, business communities and government officials trust Roche’s intention to jointly create better outcomes for patients. “We get a lot of positive feedback from them. There’s a different openness in how we show up, listen, and are curious; how our people ask questions. It’s a different intention and mindset. People are truly there to learn and partner. I think that is highly appreciated.”
We have a great team here in New Zealand who have a very aligned spark, drive, vision, and passion for what we do and the difference that we can make here in New Zealand.
– Jocelyn Reinhard, Director of People and Culture
Purpose impacts business performance, according to Harvard Business School (HBS) researchers who tapped into Great Place To Work’s comprehensive database. They found that when employees feel a sense of purpose at work and believe their leaders set clear direction and expectations, companies outperform the stock market by 6.9%1.
At Roche, this rings true in how 97% of employees feel they make a difference, an increase of 6% from the previous year. Alex explains that Roche is a purpose-driven organisation: “As leaders, we always try to bring it back to why we are here, to our purpose about making a difference for patients. Whatever we do, we try to link it back for people to understand how their work contributes to the life of patients, no matter the function. Those in supply chain bring the medicines into the country. Those in finance make sure the bills are being paid so that we can fund further research. Those meeting healthcare professionals provide all the information they need to know about our medicines. People deeply understand the purpose and feel deeply connected to the purpose and it’s something which we hold up very highly; we put a lot of energy in it and making sure that people continuously see the relevance of their work and how they can contribute with their work towards our purpose.” The efforts from its leaders has clearly paid off, as seen in a comment by an employee:
The things I always find most unique about Roche is the opportunity to see the impact our work has on real people. The framework we operate in allows people who mainly have a desk-bound role to see our work changing people’s lives in real life. I don’t think I would have the same experience at another pharmaceutical company because of the differences in how they work compared to Roche. – Roche New Zealand employee
What advice would they give for companies wanting to become great workplaces in New Zealand?
Jocelyn says, “Receiving feedback from the people and your team is the easy part. The hard part is genuinely listening and taking the time to think about what will make a difference and having that willingness to be open to feedback and creating change within your organisation, whether it be yourself as a leader, or whether it be a new team – really doing something with the results.”
Alex agrees, and adds, “Be intentional about creating the right culture. Again, there’s not a single factor, but it starts with recruitment. Who do you bring in? What’s the right mix of people? How do you create diversity? Develop vision and purpose and values, being clear on how you live up to them. Having a feedback culture, clarity of what you want to achieve. All the elements play a part – what it requires from me as a leader is just being intentional. You can just let things happen, or you’re making it a priority, as an organisation. Recognise that great results require great culture. If you just focus on the results, you’re not getting the culture. But if you focus on the culture, I’m positive you will get great results. Be intentional about it.”
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