Novo Nordisk, founded in 1923 and headquartered north of Copenhagen, Denmark, is the world’s biggest producer of medicine for insulin, obesity and other rare diseases and among the global pharma top 10 based on market cap.
The company’s vision is to drive change within the different disease areas to ensure their patients get a better life and do so through ground-breaking innovation. For the past nearly 100 years, Novo Nordisk has done just that. Challenged and pushed the boundaries for what is possible within innovative medicine. Novo Nordisk has always also had a strong focus on culture. With the 10 Essentials guiding us on how to behave, treat each other and drive our business, culture is at the centre at what we do. The company has grown a lot the last few years which can challenge the culture as more people get on-boarded and bring new views on things. “We believe in a flat organisation, where the distance from thought to action is short, where everyone can speak their mind and with a strong focus on career and personal development. However, as a large international MNC, sometimes internal processes and systems makes it difficult to stay innovative and agile, which is why we rely on our employees to speak up and share how and where we can improve. Having an open and honest company culture is paramount for Novo Nordisk to stay innovative and ahead of the game”.
Jacob Joergensen, Senior Director of People & Organisation in South-East Asia moved to Singapore from Denmark with his family in early 2021. Here he had to adjust to the Singaporean business culture as well as a different kind of company culture. One that he had not seen in HQ in Denmark.
“Part of the differences I saw, was due to the fact, that I moved from our R&D division in Denmark to our IO division in Singapore, which meant an exposure to a much more commercially driven organisation than what I had been used to. One of the biggest cultural differences was the amount of stakeholder management that had to be done in order to make decisions. I saw that it slowed down our decision time and stood in contrast to our desire to be more bold, agile and have a “founders’ mentality”. We are not there yet in South-East Asia but what we discussed in the management team was how to influence within our own area of responsibility. Otherwise, it often becomes a finger pointing game, which leads us nowhere other than running in circles and not taking responsibility and ownership. Role model the right behaviour within your area and create small ripple effects that potentially can turn into waves, was what we discussed and agreed.”
Jacob is a strong believer in utilising behavioural design as a change management tool and in role modelling the behaviour you want to see. On a tour in the newly established office in Singapore, Jacob walked by a small meeting room and asked about its intended function. He was told that it was the nursery room for new mothers to either breastfeed or pump out milk for their babies. This led him to challenge how maternity leave was viewed in South-East Asia and ultimately led to a new policy, which provides mothers with 6 months fully paid maternity leave across all the 7 Novo Nordisk affiliates in South-East Asia. “It took a few rounds of discussing in the management team, but I honestly believed it was the right thing to do for both employees and the business. The hunt for talents is fierce in our part of the world and this policy is way above both market and industry benchmarks in South-East Asia. The world has also seen a shift after COVID in what employees find important. This policy is one step in the right direction to ensure not only that the important bond between mother and child can be tended to, but also towards more engaged and motivated employees. I wanted to ensure we build a culture, where it is okay to focus on your new-born and not expect to juggle being a new mother and working after only three months, which was the case in some countries. In my opinion, that did not benefit anyone.”
Adding expenses is not always a bad business decision. Having a maternity leave policy with 6 months fully paid leave is of course not free, but with the right planning it can result in other positive outcomes like utilising other talents in the organisation for short-term assignments, stretched assignment or other talent moves. Moving talents around is an integral part of our Talent Management agenda and fits really well with our new maternity policy.
“I honestly believe that moving the cultural company needle is good for business even if it comes with a cost in the short term.” Jacob concludes.
