Alkermes’ Culture of Employee Engagement and Wellness
Originally published in Alkermes September 2023 Corporate Responsibility Report
Employee engagement remained a top priority for the Company throughout 2022. As many of our office-based employees have adapted to a hybrid work model, we’ve continued the innovative communications strategies developed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to keep employees connected and informed, including:
Frequent Leadership Communications: Facilitated regular engagement between the Company’s management team and employees, including quarterly Company town hall meetings and local office leadership team initiatives.
Reflected on Current Events: Shared perspectives from senior leadership on rapidly evolving social discourse and geopolitical events.
In-person Social Events: Hosted social events on campus for employees to enhance connections and camaraderie.
Enhanced Employee Resources: Provided employees with information, support and ongoing guidance to help navigate the evolving COVID-19 environment.
In October 2022, Ken Duckworth, Chief Medical Officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and a person living with bipolar I disorder co-hosted a Q&A event at our Waltham facility to discuss NAMI’s first book, You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health. Together they discussed the challenges of living with and caring for people with serious mental illness, as well as the perspectives shared in the book by more than 130 people with lived experience.
Learning & Development
Leading@Alkermes
The Leading@Alkermes program is a practical approach to management and leadership with a focus on best practice tools. This six-month program is designed to support managers at Alkermes through a combination of monthly modules, peer circles and independent exercises. Since the program’s launch in 2020, nearly 200 employees have graduated from this program.
Leadership in Action
Leadership in Action is a series of panel discussions focused on established leadership behaviors and designed to guide and align our leadership principles. We hosted two Leadership in Action events in 2022, which garnered attendance from more than 250 employees at the Director level and above.
LinkedIn Learning
As part of our commitment to ongoing professional development, Alkermes has provided all employees with access to LinkedIn Learning, an online learning platform with more than 16,000 courses taught by real-world experts. The platform is embedded within our performance management system to support managers and employees during annual performance review and Individual Development Plan discussions. As of the end of 2022, 89% of employees had activated an account and engaged with the platform.
Peer Appreciation and Recognition
We strongly believe in sharing and recognizing success as a team. Our RISE recognition program connects our employees across all locations and enables our employees to acknowledge and commend colleagues for outstanding performance through peer-to-peer recognition. Employee accomplishments are also celebrated company-wide through featured stories on ARC, our internal employee portal.
Employee Benefits and Wellness
Our HR team has an ‘open door’ policy to promote a healthy exchange of ideas and encourage employees to provide feedback on our programs and practices on an ongoing basis. We also regularly benchmark our HR practices against industry standards to ensure that we can compete for and retain strong talent. Our benefits and other resources are designed to support the physical, financial and emotional well-being of our employees and their loved ones, regardless of what stage of life or careers they are in. We made key enhancements to our benefits offerings in 2022 including:
Physical
- Partnered with our medical plan provider to provide a user-friendly wellness incentive app, offering up to $400 annually per employee in financial rewards. U.S. employees are rewarded for completing yearly wellness tasks such as wellness exams or on-site biometric screenings, as well as engaging with a variety of wellness content.
- Refreshed on-site offerings related to fitness and health by bringing back monthly massage clinics for employees in Ohio and providing year-end chair massages for employees in Dublin and Massachusetts, in addition to organized fitness activities like yoga, Pilates and distance running training programs.
- Hosted on-site vaccination clinics for employees in Massachusetts to receive flu and COVID-19 vaccines.
Emotional
- Expanded reimbursements to include mind and body wellness programs such as meditation, therapy and wellness subscriptions.
- Supplemented on-site physical wellness activities with holistic virtual health coaching and meditation clinics.
- Hosted virtual webinars as part of a broader “Mental Health Wellbeing Day” in Dublin; topics included supporting friends with mental health concerns, mindfulness, relaxation techniques and tips for beating fatigue.
Financial
- In addition to our market-competitive total rewards packages, as outlined below, expanded both company paid and supplemental life insurance for all U.S. employees in 2022.
- Increased healthcare rewards package and introduced a dental plan to our Irish healthcare policy.
Recognizing the value of our employees and their important contributions to the achievement of our business objectives, we offer comprehensive total rewards pay and benefits packages, including bonus opportunities at all levels tied to individual and company performance, and for employees at certain levels, company equity opportunities. We also offer healthcare and retirement savings plan benefits, paid time off, tuition reimbursement, life and disability insurance and other benefits designed to support healthy lifestyle choices, financial wellness and work-life balance.
Prioritizing Mental Health in the Workplace
In 2022, Alkermes was awarded the Bell Seal at the Platinum Level from Mental Health America. Presented to less than 110 companies annually, The Bell Seal is a nationwide employer certification awarded to companies who work to “create mentally healthy workplaces” and was awarded to Alkermes following a thorough evaluation of our policies and practices aimed at creating a workplace that values and supports our employees’ mental health.
