Our corporate culture of caring is the result of a coming together of leadership and grassroots advocacy to ensure we provide the right support for our employee caregivers. Our leaders continue to advocate for caregiver resources and support.

EMD Serono has introduced several policies to support our employees. For example, Future Ways of Work focuses on creating more flex time and options for staff. As we are a global company, we are working on rolling out this program sequentially in all the countries where we operate. Leadership has also set benchmarks for systemic progress focused on women in leadership as it is often women who take on caregiving roles in society.

The company’s remote and flexible work program has given employee caregivers much more autonomy overall. One additional program that we would like to highlight is the Employee Assistance Program, which allows employees and their families to ask professionals questions relating to care. Through this program, we determined that, during the pandemic, some of our employees’ children were expressing higher rates of depression and anxiety.

There is an economic argument to be made for supporting employee caregivers in terms of retaining employees. The excuse of not being able to afford paid leave for employees just doesn’t work as studies have shown that a majority of employees are, unfortunately, culturally reluctant to take advantage of such programs. In addition, companies can implement support programs with little to no cost, like our employee resource groups. Employers also have options to partner with a helpline or mental health services.

What is most important is to create benchmarks to measure the impact of these policies on your employees. There’s a buffet of options to implement caregiver support in the workplace and doing nothing is just not the sustainable answer.

-Jasmine Greenamyer, Head, Global Strategic Partnerships, Global Healthcare Government & Public Affairs, EMD SERONO
-Karen Turpin, Oncology Medical Science Liaison, EMD SERONO