Career Development
Stephanie Barrett, PhD
Director, Sterile & Specialty Products
Merck & Co., Inc.
Rahway, New Jersey
Neil Strotman, PhD
Director, Formulations Science
Merck & Co., Inc.
Devin Swiner, PhD (she/her/hers)
Senior Scientist
Merck & Co., Inc.
Avenel, New Jersey
Alita Miller, MS
Scientist
Oral Formulation Sciences, Merck & Co., Inc.
This session will highlight the importance of developing a sustainable environment for achieving workplace diversity, equity and inclusion through a diverse set of objectives, as well as share best practices that have been developed and applied within Merck’s Development Sciences and Clinical Supplies (DSCS) organization.
Several D&I teams and initiatives started out as grassroots efforts between colleagues who wanted to inspire positive growth within our local organization and community. With the breadth of our organization (size, scope, locations), the teams quickly realized that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ DE&I effort would not be sustainable. To catalyze change on this larger scale, the teams opted to focus on using creative approaches to community building to foster growth and inclusivity. These efforts ultimately found success by emphasizing authenticity and empathy first as small teams which helped to build a stronger case for institutional support in driving organization-wide change. This grassroots approach empowered staff to take matters into their own hands, while being guided by the basic structure for building the foundation of an effective DE&I program.
Through this session, we will share our framework and best practices for translating our organization’s values into everyday action at every level and creating workplaces where people feel safe and valued to be their unassimilated, authentic selves. Our framework is built on three key pillars (outlined below) as a set of conscious steps taken to grow and acquire new knowledge, skills, and behaviors in the workplace. Within each pillar, we will share best practices and lessons learned throughout our journey. More recently our organization has expanded to include staff across multiple countries (US, EU, Asia Pacific), and the discussion will include strategies to tailor the priorities to a global workforce.
(i) Expand the future talent pipeline:
• Crafting a recruiting strategy to develop sources of talent from a variety of backgrounds at a global scale and using inclusive language in our recruiting efforts and job descriptions
• Creating “on-the-spot” conference internships to improve connection with minority organizations and directly provide those students with growth opportunities through targeted recruitment
• Building annual talent symposiums to foster networking with universities and students who have not been reached by standard recruiting efforts and talent from non-traditional career paths
(ii) Retain and foster an inclusive workforce through building a growth mindset at all levels of the organization:
• Best practices for building a communication strategy and fostering environments of trust and belonging
• Tackling bias and building opportunities for continuous learning at all levels through workshops, speaker series, TED-style talks, podcast clubs, and formal training
• Value of connecting staff through shared experiences, and the importance of small discussion pods to provide safe spaces for employees to engage in and grow through uncomfortable conversations
(iii) Build strong community relationships to seed the next generation of diverse talent:
• Strategies for identifying opportunities at every level to contribute to community outreach at local and national levels
• Growing relationships with HBCUs and building opportunities for student mentoring to prepare them for post-graduate life.