HR for Life Sciences
Competition for top talent in life sciences is intense. We exclusively serve and therefore fully understand this market, including the foundational build required to attract and retain high-caliber performers.
Our HR for Life Sciences practice derives from decades of experience and insight into how high-performance life science organizations are built and how they should be resourced to advance from one critical milestone to the next. The practice is comprised of senior consultants with extensive backgrounds in life sciences, including expertise in building HR functions that effectively scale in line with company growth.
Meet one of our experts
Ann Darda, Managing Director
Key Considerations
- We can provide integrated HR and Finance consulting teams who work with lock-step coordination to achieve your goals. Close alignment between these functions directly impacts forecasts and budgets with respect to talent needs, compensation and compliance.
- We can help emerging companies “get it right” from the beginning – implementing a right-sized HR function that meets current needs with an eye towards the future.
- We can provide premium-caliber HR guidance and execution in a more flexible, accessible way – whether part-time or project-based – without adding fixed costs.
- Having worked inside hundreds of life science companies, we have deep knowledge of optimal team composition. Whether supporting a start-up or growth-stage company, we know which skill sets are needed and when.
How Danforth Can Help
HR Strategy and Guidance
We know when and how to initiate the HR function for your company. Our consultants will work with you to define your HR strategy, guide its execution and provide on-going support as your company evolves. It may come in the form of supporting existing or a more junior in-house HR function.
Organizational Development
We will recommend or implement processes and programs aimed at building and supporting your unique culture while improving your organizational effectiveness based on desired business outcomes.
Hiring and Selection
We will work with you to delineate your Employer Value Proposition, attract, screen and secure talent based on available candidates and your financial parameters. As experts in life science organizational development, we will help you define and hire the right roles with the right skills at the right times. Through our extensive network of partners, we can connect you with an experienced recruiter who can identify candidates to match your hiring needs.
On-boarding and Benefits/Payroll
We can efficiently supervise and/or execute the key HR processes and materials for employee recruiting, on-boarding, benefits administration, payroll and off-boarding.
Performance Evaluation and Development
We will work closely with your team to uncover early intelligence on the future labor and skill needs of your business. By monitoring organizational competencies and developing and instituting learning and development (L&D) plans, we will aim to build skills within your existing workforce rather than add headcount (wherever possible). We will also guide or manage your performance management initiatives.
Talent Retention
We will partner with your leadership and line managers to implement proactive programs to retain top talent. This includes taking the lead on setting and monitoring the employee experience to minimize turnover and its associated direct and indirect costs to the organization. We will help you build a performance-based culture and improve retention rates with a customized rewards system that may combine compensation, benefits and professional development opportunities.
Employee Relations
We will help you foster a positive employee experience via mechanisms for internal communications, issue resolution and integrating employee feedback.
Risk Mitigation
We will identify and prioritize compliance requirements based on your organizational stage and workforce and implement appropriate policies and programs. With deep knowledge of life sciences HR regulatory requirements, we will direct you in the implementation of programs that minimize risk and disruption to your business.
Executive Compensation and Recognition
We will apply our deep market expertise to help you design competitive executive compensation and recognition plans to ensure high-caliber leadership.
How else can we help?
Learn about our additional capabilities