Press Releases

2021

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at WuXi Biologics

News

Oct. 22, 2021

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at WuXi Biologics

WuXi Biologics is a leading global open-access biologics technology platform company with more than 9,400 employees from various backgrounds and nationalities supporting our customers and patients around the world. We believe that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is critical to the sustainable growth and innovation of our business.

OPPORTUNITY PARITY

We continually create and sustain a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. WuXi Biologics established a diversity and inclusion task force, which is committed to promoting the DEI policy, respecting diverse perspectives and fostering an inclusive environment.

As an equal opportunity employer, we recruit employees based on their professional and academic achievements regardless of religion, disability, age, race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or marital status.

We are committed to gender parity. This includes ensuring that women earn equal pay for equal work and are encouraged to pursue both professional development and personal growth while employed by WuXi Biologics. We ensure that our diversity is reflected in our leadership and management teams – including our Board of Directors. In 2021, women held 53% of all full-time positions, helping us exceed our target of at least 45% female employees.

The long-term development of our female employees is a key focus of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts. With this in mind. We have also implemented workplace mentorship programs and training sessions in partnership with sHero – a nonprofit focused on female career development – to promote creativity, multi-cultural expression and career development among our employees. These programs will extend to new sites as our company continues to grow.

Supporting Women in STEM Committee

Women make outstanding contributions to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In 2021, Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biologics, announced the launch of Women in STEM (WiSTEM). We established the Women in STEM Committee at our site in Dundalk, Ireland. The committee’s goal is to help women realize their potential in these fields, provide career development opportunities through and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. In 2022, the program is expected to be launched at all sites around the globe.

We have partnered with nonprofits that focus on the rights of people with disabilities. We offer employees with disabilities equal compensation and opportunities for promotion and professional development.

PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST

Our commitment to Diversity, Equality and Inclusion means not only reflecting these principles in our hiring practices, but also creating a workplace environment that allows all employees to thrive. We offer our employees Women’s Day gifts, inclusive healthcare options, and private nursing rooms across our sites.

We also fund various programs to allow employees to connect outside of work and promote a healthy work-life balance, including dance, sports, photography, E-sports, and music clubs. The employee associations at our site in Wuxi City, China have organized nearly 200 activities with over 4,000 participants.

In 2021, WuXi Biologics organized 22 CSR initiatives, including eight Family Day celebratory events, five environment protection activities. We have taken bold action to make a significant positive impact in the lives of our employees and on our communities. Through our company-wide volunteer program, we enabled 798 employees from four countries – China, Ireland, Germany, and the United States – to serve a total of 3,192 hours in their communities in 2021. The incredible dedication and selfless commitment to serving others demonstrated by these company ambassadors drive our Global CSR Task Force success.

TALENT DEVELOPMENT

We established a comprehensive system to support employee career advancement. Our goal is to help all employees to gain industry knowledge, expand their skills and feel fulfilled in their work. In 2021, our total training hours reached 664,860 hours, the number of hours per employee reached 73 hours, and the percentage of employees covered by training reached 100%. That reflects our corporate culture – PROUD Culture, which emphasizes Passion, Reward, Ownership, Unity, and Determination. We attract the world’s first-class management and technical talent, motivate and retain the company’s core talent. With this in mind, we launched several programs to support employees’ long-term development:

Global Partner Program: Further enhancing employee compensation competitiveness in various countries around the world. The company’s performance is linked to equitable incentive compensation to employees so as to further improve the company’s rapid growth and high performance.

Fresh Water Program: Employees who have worked in the company for more than a year can freely apply for vacant positions across functions and regions. We enable employee cross-functional moves and support their success in their new roles.

We emphasize employee self-directed learning and are committed to creating a positive self-directed learning environment. Structured learning programs are provided through online and offline courses to all our employees at global sites in Germany, Ireland, China, and the United States. Our learning and development programs include onboard training, technical skills training, and soft skills development. A wide variety of learning materials are always available on the iGROW platform, a digital self-learning platform with multilanguage support for our employees around the globe. In 2021, our total training hours reached 664,860 hours, the number of hours per employee reached 73 hours, and the percentage of employees covered by training reached our target of 100%.

We have also developed programs to provide financial support to all our employees in earning higher degrees and pursue additional professional qualifications, such as Certified Internal Auditor Certification, Certified Fraud Examiner Certification, Certified Information System Auditor Certification, Certified Safety Professional Certification, and Certified Industrial Hygienist, etc. WuXi Biologics has developed several joint training programs in cooperation with the China Pharmaceutical University and other higher education institutions to provide more development opportunities to our employees. We have also signed internship agreements with educational institutions to attract future talents.

WuXi Biologics also established several internal learning and training courses for our employees on the topics of anti-corruption, information security, and workplace safety. During the online MASTER CLASS sharing sessions, which are given by the company’s senior executives, employees get a chance to gain in-depth industry knowledge covering over 30 major business sectors, including discovery, development and manufacturing, quality, innovative platform capabilities, advanced technologies, and future development trends. In 2020 alone, there were 20 live online lectures, with a total of 2,508 participants throughout the year, accounting for nearly one-third of the company’s employees. The accumulative total was 6,969 attendees with an average 348 participants per session and an overall satisfaction rate of 97 points.

We are committed to improving employee satisfaction at work, WuXi Biologics has set up an HR hotline and a dedicated CEO mailbox in order to open up communication channels with employees. Employees can report and appeal through the above methods in cases where they find themselves in a dilemma or face insurmountable difficulties, find their personal interests unjustly violated or notice any behaviors not in compliance with the company’s code of conduct. We regularly check on the reporting received through these channels and follow up with the departments responsible to verify and investigate. . If the reported incident is confirmed to be true, we proceed with further action, seeking possible remedies to mitigate potential negative effects. The company maintain strict confidentiality in handling sensitive inquiries and when conducting investigations.

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