‘Amgen’s success is based on its people and culture’

[JOBs in the Pharma Industry] Amgen Korea

Has leadership attributes to identify unique Amgen talent

Recognizes an employee’s actual performance through multi-faceted evaluations other than those by his/her immediate supervisor

Work from home without separate approval...smart places are the norm

Amgen is a well-versed player in the industry.

 

Not only is it the leading global biotechnology company, but the company seems to know how to change its form to suit its environment, just like how Amgen Korea adjusts to Korea.

 

Since entering Korea in 2015, Amgen has added 6 of its launched products to the reimbursement list, including its osteoporosis drugs Prolia (denosumab) and Evenity (romosozumab), skeletal-related event prevention drug Xgeva (denosumab), dyslipidemia drug Repatha (evolocumab), acute leukemia drug Blincyto (blinatumomab), and multiple myeloma drug Kyprolis (carfilzomib).

 

In addition, the company is actively working to expand coverage by adding indications for each drug.

 

Each of these launches had its challenges, given the Korean reimbursement landscape, but Amgen Korea showed its unique focus and perseverance and completed negotiations with the government.

 

All of the drugs mentioned above are now leading their respective markets.

 

In baseball, the same pitcher has different wins depending on which team he is on.

 

Like this, part of the drugs’ success can be attributed to the good drugs, but the remaining parts certainly have something to do with the company’s strong suit.

 

What kind of benefits would employees of such a company enjoy?

 

Dailypharm met with Terry (Tae Hee) Yoon, 48, who oversees Amgen's People & Organization (P&O), to learn about the company's vision, talent, and welfare.

 

Terry (Tae Hee) Yoon, Head of People & Organization at Amgen Korea

-Amgen Korea has been making remarkable achievements.

 

What are Amgen's strengths in terms of human resource management? Amgen was founded in 1980, which is not long compared to other multinational pharmaceutical companies, but it has a history of steady growth.

 

Amgen Korea started small in 2015 and has grown to 180 employees.

 

In terms of its presence in Korea, Amgen has been in operation for 40 years, and its Korean counterpart only 10 years, yet it has been able to quickly bring a variety of innovative medicines into the Korean market.

 

The first reason for this success is that our business strategy is realistic, very organized, and strategic.

 

Chasing short-term growth can lead to greed, but rather, Amgen has systematically developed and executed a long-term strategy.

 

The second strength is in its people.

 

Amgen does a great job of hiring talent strategically and their retention.

 

And they help these talented people advance their careers through internal promotions at the next step.

 

Amgen doesn't just hire the best people from outside the company, we also help those who are already here thrive.

 

-What is Amgen's idea of an ideal employee? We hire based on our four leadership attributes - Inspire, Accelerate, Integrate, and Adapt.

 

Of course, we also look at the experience, skills, and qualifications of the person to do the described job.

 

But at the end of the day, when we seek to hire, promote, or nurture an employee, we evaluate them based on our four leadership attributes.

 

No matter how good a person is at their job, if they do not demonstrate or meet the behaviors that align with our four leadership attributes and our values, we don't think they are the right fit for Amgen.

 

We look at performance, but we also look at behavior.

 

-So if someone has shown good performance, but doesn't have the four leadership attributes, they may not get the job?

 

It’s hard to tell if a candidate has the attributes from a simple interview.

 

Leadership attributes are not yes or no questions, so we ask ‘proving questions’ to find out the current or past behaviors of the person based on the leadership attributes and determine how he or she handled the job, how he or she responded to situations, and how he or she would solve problems.

 

In addition to these processes, we interview the person with the department, HR, and if necessary, the president, and then have a calibration meeting before hiring.

 

This process ensures that we finally hire a candidate that each department agrees upon and that he or she has the right skills that align with Amgen's leadership attributes.

 

- Interest has been rising among college students in pursuing careers in multinational pharmaceutical companies lately.

 

Despite the fact that there are only a few openings a year and the door is narrow, not only pharmacy students but also general college students are showing interest.

 

Every experience counts.

 

Also, working at a local company does not reduce the chance of working at a multinational pharmaceutical company, and having a lot of experience abroad doesn't give you a free pass to Amgen either.

 

Many of our most experienced employees come to Amgen after accumulating experience in domestic pharmaceutical companies.

 

Recently, Amgen signed an MOU with the College of Pharmacy at CHA University to allow students to gain experience working as interns.

 

My advice to new graduates or undergraduates is to accumulate experience and build your own unique profile.

 

Rather than obsessing over one company and thinking, "It's either this company or nothing," I want people to be prepared by accumulating a variety of experiences.

 

Amgen doesn't have a large recruitment scale and is hiring on a rolling basis, so I think it's good to accumulate experiences whether small or large to prepare.

 

-It seems like there is a lot of demand within the company as well to gain experience in different tasks and positions.  I know Amgen has a STAR program. Amgen Korea's STAR (Short Term Assignment Resource) program allows employees to understand and experience the work of various departments within the company, and develop a future career that matches their potential capabilities as well as their ability to collaborate and communicate with employees from other departments.

 

I think it's great that the company provides diversity so that people's diverse abilities are not buried and can be brought out through new opportunities.

 

Of course, not all employees who take part in the program transfer to different positions.

 

Some employees decide that it's better to stay in their current position after experiencing the STAR program, while others change departments.

 

– Approximately what percentage of the employees seek to change their position?

 

It varies from person to person.

 

We prioritize those who have a desire to change their position, but ultimately, the company needs to identify the core positions it needs.

 

What you want to do and what you're good at can be different, so we try to identify the positions first and then build the talent pipeline pool to fit those positions.

 

-How does Amgen evaluate its employees?

 

Amgen has a system called MAP (Maximizing Amgen Performance).

 

It's a five-point rating scale, and we evaluate three cycles: goal setting, mid-year, and year-end.

 

But we limit the evaluations to just three times.

 

In the case of the year-end evaluation system, the company's goals are shared with the vice presidents, who then share them with their employees and develop engagement scores and programs accordingly.

 

The year-end review then evaluates the KPI part as well as leadership attributes.

 

In terms of leadership attributes, HR helps facilitate workshops for teams, which are then internalized to individual employees to ensure objectivity and consistency.

 

As part of the evaluation process, the leadership team has a formal calibration meeting with other departments to assess whether the employee's performance is aligned with the company’s leadership attributes in a multi-faceted way.

 

Because of this process, I trust that my leaders and other collaborators can give me an objective, multi-faceted assessment of what I've worked hard on.

 

With so many different departments involved, this process can be very sobering.

 

You may be doing a great job, but there may be conflicts in a cross-functional context, and the department head would have blind spots.

 

This evaluation may result in a downgrade, even if the head of the person’s department wants to give the person the highest possible rating.

 

-What benefits do you offer to your employees that are unique to Amgen?

 

During the pandemic, most pharmaceutical companies started remote working programs allowing employees to work from home for safety reasons.

 

After the pandemic, most of these programs have been shut down, or are allowed to work from home only on dates that have been approved by managers.

 

Amgen's Flex Space culture, both in Korea and globally, seems to have built a strong sense of trust between the company and employees.

 

Amgen Korea has introduced Flex Space culture such as smart offices and Fun Friday, where employees can leave work early on the third Friday of every month to spend time with their families, encouraging employees to also focus on their lives outside of work.

 

- Looking at your past activities, you seem to be focusing on 'family' in particular. Yes.

 

One of the unique aspects of Amgen is our Family Friendly Certification, which we received in 2022.

 

The average age of our employees is in their early 40s, which is very young, and is an age when there are a lot of family concerns, including childcare.

 

The employee resource group (ERG) program is also based on this.

 

Our employees are highly engaged in the company, driven by our bottom-up culture, rather than from the top down.

 

Our ERG program is one example of this.

 

This year, we'll be inviting families to the office to introduce and showcase the company their parents or children work for.

 

- What else would you like to introduce about your company?

 

Amgen is a company that has grown and will continue to grow.

 

It's a great place to work for women, with 70% of our executives being women, and we have a systematic career development program in place for talented people of all genders, and many opportunities for local talent to expand their roles into global.

 

One such program is Thrive, which is run in the Asia Pacific region.

 

The Thrive program has been and will continue to be an opportunity for candidates to expand their work experience in other Asian regions after a selection process.

 

There are also opportunities for employees to work on projects with people in Region, even if you're not directly working overseas.