Promoting growth and reducing turnover
Case study
Using rapid and efficient resource allocation
A large leading pharmaceutical company had a requirement to scale up quickly and supplement their current FSP headcount across their study management function. In 2017, they enlisted ICON’s help to provide the client with 10 Study Manager FTEs across Europe and North America and by the beginning of 2020 this had extended to 32 FTEs across five countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the client faced unprecedented resourcing needs and as well as the evolution of their Study Start up structure globally. In order to meet the client’s growing needs, ICON expanded headcount, regional footprint and roles provided. Currently in 2022, ICON provides services for 31 roles in 35 countries across all regions with a total of 350 FTEs.
The challenge
With growing requirement for resources, we were faced with the challenge of providing adequate support to the client. The rapid expansion of the business necessitated quick onboarding of new resources. Extensive talent acquisition support was needed to fill the new roles. We were also required to arrange a leadership team to support the client through the recruitment and on-boarding processes for these new roles. Our goal was to increase headcount, facilitate seamless resource management, and offer creative solutions to meet their need for a growing workforce.
The solution
We provided several solutions to support the exponential growth of the client programme:
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dedicated leadership team
We assigned a dedicated leadership team to provide management and oversight tailored to the requirements of the programme.
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customising management
We customised our management style to meet the needs of the client across line management, functional management and unit-based management.
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facilitating training support
The entire process of resource selection and allocation requires extensive and sustained training support. A global team is required to not only train the recruitment team and new joiners but also train the trainers. We provided the client with a strong training team besides catering to all their onboarding needs.
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talent Acquisition Support
We established local talent acquisition teams across geographical units to speed up the hiring process.
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retention policy
With new talents joining the organization in a competitive market, it became imperative introduce certain perks to retain the new talents. We introduced Global Micro Community Events, Employee Recognition Programme, and role-specific community forums to support and retain these individual contributors in their new roles.
The outcome
Despite the competitive vendor environment, the partnership continues to grow with ICON continuing to meet or exceed the client’s demanding study deliverables with quality and integrity. From January to June 2022 itself, we have added 41 global roles and increased the headcount in the client company to 346, with April showing the steepest rise in 2022. The success of this partnership can also be determined from the considerable decrease in turnover from 2021 to 2022 as compared to the increase in workforce around the globe.
