Like a child leaving home to chart an independent path to grow, biopharmaceutical company AbbVie separated from pharmaceutical and medical device giant Abbott Labs in 2013.
Now a biopharma titan, then AbbVie was a start-up—but one in a unique position: It was not only well-funded and came from an established player in the industry, it also was home to many former employers of Abbott, who transferred over during the spinoff. They were familiar with the culture of their former employer, creating an interesting challenge for AbbVie’s founding CHRO, Tim Richmond, as he worked to establish a culture that was a departure from that of Abbott. Building culture from the ground-up, he says, was both an exciting opportunity and a daunting task.
Fortunately for Richmond, AbbVie’s founding CEO, Rick Gonzalez, who now serves as AbbVie’s executive chairman, and other members of the original C-suite team made culture one of AbbVie’s top four business priorities. Richmond notes most companies treat culture as an add-on to the business strategy instead of a focus.
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Richmond and his team developed the Ways We Work framework, built on five pillars, to describe the employee behaviors that would drive AbbVie’s culture strategy:
- All for one AbbVie: View AbbVie as the primary entity that you care about
- Decide, smart and sure: Strive to be quick in making intelligent decisions
- Agile and accountable: Be nimble, agile and biotech-like
- Clear and courageous: Feel safe to speak up and be transparent in communications
- Make possibilities real: Aim to be innovative
Richmond recently sat down with HR Executive for a video interview to discuss how he and his team built AbbVie’s culture and the results of this work.
