Paula Swain0:06
I was able to build the function from the ground up here at Incyte. For me, what I always want to describe what kind of HR function we are is we're a high-touch HR function. We're sort of bucking the trends, which a lot of HR departments have websites and you call an 800 number if you have a question or go online and look for your answer. We're pretty high touch, so employees stop by my office all the time and ask me how do I get this reimbursed or what's this on our insurance plan. We want people to interact with us, so we put together a very attractive benefits package so that people are well taken care of, well compensated, but also have great benefits. We try to think about how we can make employees' lives easier. Pharmaceuticals is a very competitive industry, and you have to figure out how to set yourself apart. One way to do that is to have creative science, so people want to work here because of that. But what keeps them there are good policies, good practices, and the personalization that people aren't numbers. We've gotten a bit bigger; we have people in Europe and just started an operation in Japan, but we still feel like we're a small company. We're 1,200 people, not that large, but a lot larger than we were. From an HR perspective, what keeps people with us is that ability to feel like they're making a contribution. That's how you attract top talent and retain them.
Hervé is someone who is highly creative, highly strategic, very knowledgeable in the oncology space. He spent almost his entire career in oncology, which is unusual. Every company he's worked in has been in oncology. He is strategically 10 steps ahead of everyone. When he joined the company, we were pretty small and Delaware-based, pretty happy with the way the organization was. But when he came in, he laid out things he thought would be important for us to do. One was to expand beyond just the US, looking at expansion into Europe and Japan. He talked a lot about technical operations, looking at potentially manufacturing our own products, which we currently don't do. That was another initiative he put in place. We have a small group that is looking at non-oncology products, and he made that a separate unit we call our Advanced Medicines Unit. He has strategically positioned us in a way that will allow us to grow, become self-sufficient, and continue to grow as an independent company.
One of the things when he first got there, we talked a lot about what was missing from the company. I told him that one of the things I felt we were missing was not having a very robust philanthropy program. He thought it was a great idea and said let's create a foundation. What we basically created was what we call Incyte Involved. Incyte Involved is a three-prong program. One is the charitable giving foundation, where we distribute about $500,000 a year to charitable organizations within Delaware only. We established that money has to be used in Delaware, in two categories: one is to help cancer patients or organizations that help cancer patients, and also community need. The second part is that we give each employee a volunteer day off, so they get eight hours each year to volunteer at an organization of their choice, often one we've made a grant to. That helps get our employees out into the community. The third piece is a matching gifts program, where up to a thousand dollars a year we match whatever our employees give. We've linked the three together so that we have grants we're making, we're trying to get our employees to volunteer time, and then to give donations, so it's all an integrated program. At a time when a lot of the funding within the state has been reduced for charitable organizations, it's made a big impact. As we've had other employers moving out, it's helped fill a bit of a void. It's probably one of the most rewarding parts of my job, to be able to interact with these organizations and see the good work being done throughout our communities.
