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In a competitive, candidate-short sector like healthcare and life sciences, your employee value proposition – the total value you offer to prospective hires and existing employees - is key to attracting top talent. And it’s especially important at a time of economic uncertainty, when many talented professionals are reluctant to risk changing jobs.
At Michael Page Healthcare and Life Sciences, we work with clients to help them build truly competitive EVPs. And to gain deeper insight into what a top EVP looks like in this sector, we recently surveyed 5,000 professionals across the UK, including over 800 within healthcare and life sciences specifically.
Here, we present our key findings, including key action points to help healthcare and life sciences employers attract the best applicants and keep crucial talent for longer.
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Pull factors are the elements of your EVP that attract fresh talent. Again, they can be financial, such as salaries and bonuses, but often by offering the right perks and benefits, as well as emphasising company culture, you can do more without increasing financial overheads.
When asked what was important to them in an employer, the responses of healthcare and life sciences differed notably from other sectors. There were also disparities between respondents in healthcare specifically and those in life sciences.
Let's look at some of the biggest pull factors for those individuals.
The top three values sought by candidates in healthcare and life sciences were:
These were closely followed by a sense of purpose (41%) and good relationships with colleagues (39%), highlighting the personal nature of the values candidates seek in a new role.
Healthcare employees felt even more strongly about the job benefits they were looking for:
Job security (52%) and company values (39%) also made the top five, while opportunities for progression were important to an above-average 35%, compared with 30% across all sectors.
While 28+ days' paid holiday per year was a popular benefit across most respondent groups, less than half (46%) of healthcare and life sciences selected this option, compared with 52% across all sectors.
Flexible, hybrid, and remote working are relatively important to life sciences employees (43%, the same as the all-sectors average) but significantly less valued by healthcare employees (just 36%).
In healthcare, we found good maternity/paternity policies are important to 34% of employees, well above the average of 27%, and an above-average 15% said they would also welcome workplace loan schemes to help them cover the cost of large purchases.
For a deep dive into salaries and remuneration trends across the life sciences sector, download our free 2023 Guide to Salaries and Hiring Strategy in Life Sciences.
Finally, we found some interesting results among the perks employees look for in healthcare and life sciences. This includes a substantially lower than average proportion who want to finish early on a Friday: 27% of life sciences and 33% of healthcare professionals, compared with an all-sector average of 39%.
Some 41% of healthcare professionals want workplace training opportunities, well above the average of 35%. We also found above-average support for free therapy (26%) and free financial advice (22%).
Once you've brought in a new employee, you want to keep them with you, progressing and bringing value to the organisation. In our survey, we found that professionals in both disciplines had been in their current roles for shorter periods than the all-sectors average:
If fact, it takes healthcare and life sciences candidates less time on average to experience 'itchy feet', to start actively looking for a different job, and to find a new role:
Overall, people spend about 1.6 months longer in life sciences roles than in healthcare jobs, and nearly four months longer in an average job across all industries.
We found some common reasons why professionals in both disciplines might develop seek new opportunities:
This is a clear call to action for organisations across the sector – while salary and benefits are hugely important in attracting and retaining top talent, other less tangible elements of company culture and working conditions can be even more impactful in the long run. By focusing on creating an enjoyable working environment and showing staff that their efforts are truly appreciated, you can put yourself at a real strategic advantage.
The results of our survey show that, in healthcare and life sciences, employers have about two years from onboarding a new employee before that individual is likely to be looking for work elsewhere - or to have already found it. A strong employee value proposition can help you keep top performers and attract those high-calibre professionals who may be looking for new opportunities.
Whatever your talent needs, we have a team on hand to help. Our Page Consulting team specialises in workforce planning and helping organisations build their EVPs. When it comes to hiring, we have healthcare and life sciences-specific teams operating across multiple levels of the job market:
Michael Page for qualified professional and middle management roles.Page Personnel for professional clerical and support roles. Page Executive for executive level roles. Page Outsourcing for custom volume hiring solutions.
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