SUSTAINABILITY
Naturally diverse, equally included, globally successful
At Abcam, we understand that by ensuring everyone can take opportunities to excel in their careers, can fulfil their aspirations whatever their background or way of life, and feel confident being themselves at work, is critical to sustaining our growth and success.
By Danielle Norby, VP of People Experience, Abcam
At Abcam, we understand that by ensuring everyone can take opportunities to excel in their careers, can fulfil their aspirations whatever their background or way of life, and feel confident being themselves at work, is critical to sustaining our growth and success.
By Danielle Norby, VP of People Experience, Abcam
As we pursue our ambitious growth strategy and continue to accelerate scientific discoveries that can benefit all, we understand that a key determining factor in building a successful organization lies in our ability to attract and retain the best talent. Every individual is unique, and their diverse skills, perspectives and capabilities bring an invaluable and equally unique contribution to solving problems, making decisions, challenging the status quo [1]. When addressing tasks of increasing complexity – as we often do in our sector – diverse teams collectively exhibit a greater variety of ideas, problem-solving styles and are better positioned to outperform teams of a similar background.
Building mixed teams answers a tangible business need for Abcam. To best benefit from various talents and perspectives, we need to grow an inclusive culture where the advantages of diversity are more likely to crystalize, develop and last.
The DNA of D&I
Abcam has always had an employee-centric culture and strived to create an environment where everyone feels they can bring their “whole-self” to work. In many ways, an environment with gender balance that represents different races, ages, nationalities and cultures may be considered diverse as it visibly appears so. However, we recognize that diversity also includes “hidden” characteristics such as education, socioeconomic status, work styles, ability, sexual orientation, values and beliefs, and more. To nurture the benefits of true diversity we must take into account these differences and cultivate an “inclusive” environment where social norms and behaviors ensure people feel welcome, respected and are provided equal access to resources and opportunities.
Creating a more supportive and inclusive workplace at Abcam
D&I started organically, with the creation of informal groups where people could safely share their experiences, express their feelings, and support each other. These groups grew overtime and evolved into a rich network of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), endorsed by our Leadership team. ERGs are responsible for continually driving D&I change at Abcam and raising the voice of underrepresented communities. By sharing stories and experiences, these groups contribute to building a more inclusive environment.
Empathy and education are important parts of our D&I strategy: driving awareness, providing access to information and educational resources in addition to creating a supportive environment where we can learn from each other regardless of role and hierarchy. As part of this, ERGs are engaging with business communities and networking hubs such as myGwork, or Work180 to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace and beyond.
Our Gender Equality team & Family+ group have informed policies that make Abcam a more attractive place to work, including our new Global Family Leave Policy which offers enhanced packages. Introduced in October 2019, the policy ensures that all our people are entitled to the same amount of leave no matter where they are in the world through an increase in fully paid parental leave. This is inclusive of adoption and same-sex parents. Ultimately, our goal is to have a genderless family leave policy. Read more here
It is also important that we challenge embedded rigid processes and make them more flexible to help empower employees to do their best work. This also means supporting their choices so they can achieve effective results. In 2017, Abcam began to take proactive steps to support gender diversity and inclusion by adopting flexible working, which gives our employees choice and the freedom to structure their day. Flexible working has been implemented across all our sites globally, and is of benefit to all. Learn more here
We have also created inclusion hubs, including our LGBTQIA+ support group, ARC (Abcam’s Rainbow Community) and the multicultural support group HOPE (Helping Our People Excel), to name a few. We focus on the needs of each respective community, recognizing that every group has its own unique personality and individual challenges.
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Greg, co-chair of Abcam’s Rainbow Community, shares his experience about the place of the LGBTQIA+ community in Science.
When diversity makes an impact
We believe that we can only perform at our best in an inclusive workspace where everyone is truly collaborative, their personal drivers are respected, and viewpoints celebrated. At Abcam, we’ve observed that diversity, supported by an inclusive environment contributes to more effective team outcomes – whether it is bolder levels of innovation, faster problem-solving or better decision-making. We also find that when people feel included it leads to stronger employee engagement which in turn enhances our reputation and results in improved hiring – as reflected in the 2021 Glassdoor list of “Best Place to Work” where Abcam scored #3.
Finally, our people are also enabled to engage more fully with the diverse life science community in which we operate.
It’s the journey, not the destination
Building a strong D&I culture is an evolving process which is subject to social and environmental influences. However, it is important that as we develop our business globally and strive for success, we continue to invest in diverse talent and maintain an inclusive culture.
Through this, we will continue to reinforce the natural diversity that makes Abcam an incredible place to work and contributes to building a richer, more resilient, more impactful organization ultimately driving towards business success.
By creating an organization that aims to benefit all our employees, we believe that in return, we are best placed to fulfil our purpose to accelerate scientific discoveries that can benefit all.
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