BioTen video series: Organization & job design

Interviewer: Jonathan Wildman, Senior Client Partner, Biopharma/Med Device Advisory Lead, Korn Ferry

Speaker: Denise Klecka, Senior Client Partner, LS Organization Strategy, Korn Ferry

Jonathan Wildman: Hi, folks. Welcome back to BioTEN this is Jon. I'm joined by Denise today. Denise, thanks so much for joining us.

Denise Klecka: You bet. Happy to be here.

Jonathan Wildman: Excellent. So, the topic is Org and Job Design in the BioPharma and Med Device space and I think you have an example that you want to share with us.

Denise Klecka: I do. Yes. Thank you so much, Jonathan. So, in the work that we do with a lot of our organizations in this space, something that we're seeing being very prevalent as far as needs go is work related to their organization design as well as their job design rolling up underneath that. There's a lot of things that I think are impacting the organizations that we work with in this market right now that are causing them to reflect on. What's really important especially as you look at how they are trying to grow as an organization. For example, one organization we work with has a dual strategy for growth. One is related to innovation, and another is related to acquisition.

Now, when it comes to innovation, what they have realized is that they really needed a much flatter organization structure to be able to support that innovation culture. That's a real change for them from a cultural standpoint and it's something that we worked with them on to be able to cultivate an environment that would allow for a flatter organization, decisions to be made in a much quicker way than they traditionally have. On the other side, they also have a strategy and alignment to acquisition. From that perspective, their organization design needed to change because it needed to be much more flexible. They needed to have more agile pools of talent that could flex out and flex in as needed to be able to digest and help those newly acquired organizations come into their environment and ultimately have to be successful.

So that's a couple of different ways in which the organization design was impacted by their growth strategies.

Jonathan Wildman: That's so great, so the career pathing piece that we were talking about before, if you're trying to create a flatter organization or one that is more flexible, how does that impact career pathing?

Denise Klecka: It impacts it greatly and I think for most of our client organizations they realize it becomes far more important because the less hierarchical an organization is the less rungs there are in a ladder for talent to climb up.

However, we know that talent is incredibly interested in gaining experiences and building capability and at the end of the day, that's a major factor and engagement. So, the career pathing work that we've done with the same organization as a matter of fact, but many others as well, helps both the talent and the leaders of that talent understand what are the different routes that individuals can take to gather up those different experiences. And not only what are those routes that they can take but what do they need to do to be able to better prepare themselves to be successful those, in those new positions and we do that by being able to really break down the different types of roles within an organization and knowing what are the behaviors that are needed. What are the skills that are needed? What are their traits that are needed because then that allows people and their leaders to more easily prepare them developmentally to be successful to take on those additional roles.

Jonathan Wildman: That's amazing, Denise. If you have any questions for Denise, about org and job design or career pathing, please see her email address at the end of this video. Thank you so much for your time.

Denise Klecka: Thank you.

Watch all of the BioTEN Video Series