“People are happier when they have a little flexibility”

The Covid-19 pandemic has helped force the greatest upheaval in the workplace of this century and probably the last.

According to Reid, it took a pandemic to prove employees can actually work from home. The discovery turned the workplace upside down.

Remote working, virtual meetings, flexible working hours?

“Those were the things we thought about before Covid but we never really did them because we all feared we were going to lose productivity, that we wouldn’t be able to fulfill our roles as well. ‘ Reid said.

“But actually we find the opposite. People are happier when they have a bit of flexibility.”

Now, after two years of telecommuting, companies worldwide are making the journey back to the office for employees, bringing them back to a vastly different workplace, according to Reid.

Reid, who has been with Pfizer Healthcare Ireland for two decades, oversees 4,000 employees across five locations in Cork, Dublin and Kildare. The company is the largest pharmaceutical employer in Ireland. Employees there played an “enabling” role in manufacturing the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine, the two-dose Comirnaty vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. The company’s other “breakthrough” drug, Paxlovid, the Covid-19 antiviral pill, is made here at sites in Newbridge and Ringaskiddy.

Shortly after lockdown in March 2020, those employees who could were asked to work from home.

“When working in the virtual environment, we found that colleagues were probably working longer hours. They were probably tied to their desk—their desk at home—more than ever. They didn’t have the opportunity to interact with their colleagues just by getting up from their desks,” Reid said.

“So we put a lot of effort into making a little bit of fun. We’ve had many, many initiatives, like yoga, virtual yoga, we have quizzes, mental health seminars, we’ve had speakers on health issues. We did what we could to get people out of the monotony of working at home.”

When the pandemic left Christmas parties behind, The Late Late Toy Show became a substitute. The company sent toy fair Packages including throws, hot chocolate, treats, snacks and family luncheon vouchers.

Now, Reid is encouraging Pfizer Healthcare Ireland staff to return to the workplace, although not necessarily to the same pre-pandemic routines.

First, the return will be gradual. The company is taking a cautious approach and is closely monitoring the Covid-19 numbers.

“We are still not letting all colleagues back on site for health and safety reasons because we have our own internal metrics on what needs to be achieved in terms of the number of new cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 in the population. Until we get to our own metrics, we’re not going to allow everyone to return,” Reid said.

The current national 14-day incidence rate is 419 cases per 100,000 people as of May 3, so Pfizer’s metrics are significantly lower.

The company promotes a “hybrid” workplace model.

“So you will be working remotely, but you will also have face-to-face engagement in the office or on the job site. It will be their choice, along with their manager, how much of the week they work from home and how much onsite,” Reid said.

“You can come to the site two days a week, three days a week. We do not specify how many days you have to be on site. But we encourage colleagues to come to us because it’s a good connection point, it’s important to our culture and it gives people a sense of belonging. Only on site do you feel that you are working for an organization. People can do jobs from home and we continue to encourage this if that works better for them. So it’s a totally flexible model.”

Ultimately, Reid believes this is the future of the workplace.

“I think we will have to empower colleagues in different roles to shape their own day-to-day work. I think this way you will see better productivity. We’ve seen that in a few roles. People have a better work-life balance. Also in the future I think it will allow us to attract better talent. You get more diverse talent because you’re known for being a flexible work environment,” he said.

“Joy” is one of the company’s four core values, along with courage, excellence and justice. According to Reid, it’s as much about taking pride in your work as it is about having “fun” with co-workers. Fun innovations include “spontaneous moments of happiness” that encourage colleagues to take time out for a coffee or to send e-cards.

The company also has a session-free week once every quarter, except for those deemed “mission-critical.” “It’s not like you stop working. But it gives you some freedom, away from your emails, where you’ll start thinking more strategically, you’ll start thinking about how to simplify your work, how to cut out some of the existing bureaucracy, and let’s be honest “There’s bureaucracy in pharma because we’re heavily regulated,” Reid said.

Diversity is another Pfizer keyword. The Pfizer Group has an entire division in the US that deals with diversity, equity & inclusion.

The pandemic-related boost for the pharmaceutical industry is not only financial. (Pfizer’s Healthcare Ireland’s US parent company doubled annual sales and profits to $81.3 billion in 2021, largely due to the Covid-19 vaccine)

The vaccines have undoubtedly saved lives and changed the course of the pandemic. Confidence in the vaccine is reflected in the high level of uptake among Irish people, with 95.2 per cent of adults fully vaccinated. Surveys show that public confidence in healthcare has increased.

Increasingly, highly qualified “talents” and budding scientists want to be part of it, according to Reid. “I think we’re becoming a much more attractive proposition for graduates because they can see the value we’ve been able to bring to society at a particularly challenging time during the pandemic,” Reid said.

“When you look at the pipelines that the sector has in terms of exciting new therapies in the future, it probably gives people a little reassurance that there’s a lot more to come from this sector in terms of applied science, which is good .”

For Reid and his colleagues, the boost of being part of the global giant that has co-produced billions of doses of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine has been immense.

“To be honest, when you talk to colleagues, they are very proud of what Pfizer has been able to achieve with BioNTech,” he said. “We got approval for a vaccine against a virus that honestly nobody thought was possible, and certainly not at the speed at which we did it,” he said.

“If we didn’t have the vaccine as quickly as we had it, we would probably be in a very different place now. Through the two-dose vaccination program, we have been able to help prevent people from catching the virus, but also prevent hospitalization and, in some cases, even death. I think this is something that colleagues are very aware of and very proud that Pfizer was involved in.”