‘Vaccine powerhouse’ is the first image that comes to mind upon the mention of GSK these days. The company has been constantly exerting its influence with its range of vaccines for various vaccine-preventable diseases.

In the specialty medicine space, the company has expanded its pipeline to include respiratory asthma and COPD, as well as Lupus, HIV/AIDS (Specialty Care), and, most recently, cancer.

This growth was driven by ‘Purpose,’ which integrates the company’s vision and mission. GSK seeks to become a global pharmaceutical company with a passion and purpose to unite science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together.

The reason why the company’s purpose includes talent is clear: even with great science and technology, GSK cannot achieve its purpose if no one delivers it to the patients.

This perspective sets GSK apart from other companies in terms of talent acquisition. The company fosters a culture where the company is not only responsible for each individual’s growth through motivation and development but also for their care.

GSK values its talent and emphasizes mutual growth from the beginning to the end of each employee’s career. We spoke to Rosa Kim, Country Head of Human Resources at GSK Korea, to hear bout the company's organizational culture and working environment.

I noticed GSK’s corporate goal includes the unification of ‘talent.’ What kind of talent does GSK seek?

= GSK has four leadership focuses. Current leaders, leadership candidates, and employees who wish to grow into leaders thrive based on the four focuses, so the focuses are at the core of the company’s talent profile.

The first is ‘Motivate’. A good leader should be able to articulate the WHY message. It's important to be able to give a clear WHY, why I work at GSK, and why I should do this job. The second is ‘Focus’ to drive the business, which is having a part in the success and growth of the business.

The third is ‘Develop,’ which requires a lot of contemplation and regard for personal growth and the growth of the colleagues and people you work with. The final one is ‘Care,’ which I think is GSK's most unique culture.

We seek talent with genuine leadership and ‘care,’ who is empathetic and caring towards the people they work with, whether it's a warm caring message from a leader to an employee who had a very difficult day to motivate the employee to forget the day’s hardships and gain the courage to get throughout the day.

How do you recruit talent that can deliver this vision?

= GSK has several programs in place to identify talents early on, develop them within the company, and nurture them into leaders. For example, we have the Future Leaders Program (FLP) for students seeking their first job out of university or are at the beginning of their career.

The primary goal of the program is to foster talents into Commercial Business Unit Head in 10 years. The are cases where the program led talents to the BU Head training track, leading employees to become a BU Head and then a General Manager (GM) at headquarters.

English language skills seem to be important. Do employees also take on international roles?

= In the case of the Future Leaders program, all interviews are conducted in English. It is a program that trains junior future leaders to continue their careers not only in Korea but also overseas. Once you join the program, you will go through two to three rotations over three years, and then, depending on your capabilities and the outcome of the evaluation, you will be connected to your next position.

I know of only GSK that has a track that directs employees in the early stage to BU Head to Leader to General Manager.

What about hiring for experienced positions?

= In the case of general recruitment, we tend to hire more experienced professionals. GSK Korea has a low turnover rate compared to other companies, so it is less likely to be hired due to vacancies and more likely to be hired for new launches or product growth, or to replace internal personnel due to personnel transfers.

In recent years, we have hired entire members of the anti-cancer business unit when we started our anti-cancer business. In addition, we have been hiring experts in the market for our ever-expanding pipeline, such as the shingles vaccine (Shingrix) and new vaccines to accommodate our vaccine business which continues to grow.

The company must also be making efforts to cultivate talent within the organization

= We've been working on a platform since last year to help people draw out what their career roadmap should look like based on where they want to end up in their careers over time.

In sales, we have a program for seasoned medical representatives to transition to their next career, as well as the Emerging Sales Leader Academy (ESLA), which is designed to foster sales team leaders.

In addition, we hold a quarterly People Leader Forum (PLF), which is a platform for managers, BU heads, directors, etc. to share experiences and learn what they need to learn more about as leaders within GSK and how they can implement them in practice.

Can employees freely change positions?

= We have a very active internal recruitment system to support our plan to continue our growth as we grow the business and launch new products. So job transitions are quite frequent within GSK. All openings are shared with all employees on a regular basis, almost weekly, and many employees apply for the transition. In fact, over the last 2 years, about 20% of GSK’s hires have been internal. 

In particular, some employees with very irrelevant experience transfer between units or receive promotion opportunities. In such cases, we're not just focusing on the final selection, but believe a lot of the experience is in the challenge itself and offer feedback, which was received with a good response.

How is the employee evaluation system structured at GSK?

= GSK Korea has a simplified but to-the-point evaluation system. For example, we don't have a numerical evaluation system or one that encourages unnecessary internal competition. Evaluations are conducted within a culture of feedback and coaching, through very close dialogue with the manager about the goals set for the year and the employee’s development plan.

The most important feature is that we have an internal award system for the best-performing office employees. We celebrate and reward the employee's achievements and share the news with other organizations and teams throughout the company.

Do you also reward employees based on your evaluation system?

= I think GSK Korea has a good reputation, a reputation that we are proud of, and I think this is thanks to our excellent people. From the perspective of whether we are treating our employees appropriately, we have a lot of professional employees and apt compensation in place for the employees. I think our low turnover rate speaks for our employees’ high satisfaction.

Does GSK have any unique welfare systems in place?

= There are two unique welfare systems at GSK Korea. The first is, as we are a vaccine company, all employees and their families, spouses, and children can receive GSK's vaccines.

In the area of mental health, we have a global Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) where employees can receive psychological counseling and other professional help. I know that other companies usually offer about 5 counseling sessions, but GSK offers about 10. In the first half of this year alone, about 25% of our employees made use of the system.

Also, at the end of the year, the company holds a lottery at the end of the year when you use up your annual leave to take a holiday as a way of saying, ‘We've had a hard year, let's take a well-deserved break together’. If you win the lottery, the company pays for your holiday.

We also have good support in place for working moms and dads. For example, if you have a child under the age of 1, the company offers additional parental leave at the headquarters level in addition to the mandated parental leave. We have a company system in place that allows a mix of paid and unpaid leaves. Over the past 3 years, about 30% of employees have taken parental leave, and 100% have returned to work and continued their careers.

Lastly, how would you describe the culture and recruitment at GSK Korea in one word?

=The theme of this year's organizational culture is ‘Growth Mindset.’ As GSK is at a stage where it is undergoing a lot of change and innovative growth in various fields of business, we are focusing on what kind of experience we want to have and how far we want to grow through an ‘inclusive culture,’ rather than take the old-fashioned approach of changing and surviving internally to cope with external changes.