HR for Life Sciences
Our HR for Life Sciences practice helps you create effective people strategies and provides operational support to drive your organization forward so you can reach your business goals.
Our practice is comprised of seasoned HR professionals in life sciences who bring rich and varied backgrounds in a wide range of disciplines from executive coaching, to talent acquisition, to day-to-day people operations.
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 Development
We provide talent development workshops to help clients improve collaboration and productivity in an ever-increasing hybrid/remote work environment. In partnership with the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), these flexible, scalable solutions are customized to meet the needs of life science organizations at all stages. The programs may be implemented across companies of all sizes, for small teams, or for selected individuals focused on specific skills. Our HR consultants can facilitate the various workshops or assist clients’ internal HR staff in rolling out the programs. Training may be conducted online or in person. You can get started here.
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.
Talent Acquisition
We are your end-to-end talent acquisition function. We provide and manage job design, profiles, and postings; talent search management; interview process management; offer letters, employment contracts, and NDAs; candidate screening and scheduling; pre-hire background and reference checks; and offer calibration for selection. We apply sector-specific expertise in filling critical roles across the breadth of life science organizations. Â
How else can we help?
Learn about our additional capabilities