Pfizer shows community spirit
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390980000992 |
| Published date | 21 October 2007 |
| Pages | 8-9 |
| Date | 21 October 2007 |
| Author | Pam Baker,Christine Jenkins |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
8Volume 6 Issue 5 July/August 2007
HR AT WORK
,
Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in HR
Pfizer shows community spirit
P
fizer’s site at Sandwich in Kent, UK
is the European research and
development base and UK
manufacturing headquarters of Pfizer
Inc, the US global pharmaceutical
company. The largest private employer
in East Kent, it has a workforce of 4,000,
of which 2,800 are permanent
employees and 1,200 are contract staff.
The site is located in one of the UK’s
most deprived areas, with over 60,000
local people among the 20 percent most
deprived in England.
The site’s community investment
program, Healthy Communities, won a
Business in the Community Award
1
for
excellence in 2006. Healthy Communities
includes gifts in kind, community grants
and employee involvement, with the
development of the latter being the
focus of this case study.
Creating a holistic involvement program
In July 2004, Pfizer at Sandwich
conducted a review of the employee-
related elements of its community
investment to examine how they could
be better integrated. These elements
included payroll giving, volunteering
and staff-matched fundraising.
The obvious first choice was to look
at volunteering. Eighty-five percent of
Pfizer employees are minimum graduate
level and can bring much-needed skills
to a deprived area. All employees at the
site already had five paid days a year
they could use for volunteering, which
would not only support the community
but also boost employee engagement
and create opportunities for Pfizer
employees to visibly connect with the
community, and vice versa.
In October 2004, volunteering was
identified as a key area for further
development, but for employee
volunteering to be a success, it had to be
proactively marketed inside Pfizer and
there needed to be adequate support
and administration behind the program.
Many employees were unaware of their
five days allocation, and there was no
clear mechanism for finding suitable
volunteering opportunities.
Presenting volunteering opportunities
In conjunction with consultancy CC
Works, a searchable database of local
volunteering opportunities was created.
Although “off-the-shelf” volunteering
databases were available, Pfizer felt it
was important to create a tailored
database that would be furnished
internally in order to ensure a local bias
and to maintain the quality of the
information supplied to employees.
To tie in with employees’ personal
development plans, opportunities in the
database had to meet at least two of
Pfizer’s six key competencies:
1. Team development.
2. Project management.
3. Coaching and development.
4. Decision making.
5. Effective partnership.
6. Working with change.
To fill the database with relevant
opportunities, all organizations that had
contacted Pfizer for grants or funding in
the previous two to three years were re-
contacted and asked if they would also
be interested in volunteering. Over 70
percent responded positively, and 300
volunteering opportunities were sourced.
CC Works helped the voluntary
organizations create opportunities that
were most likely to take advantage of
Pfizer employees’ range of specialist skills.
These opportunities were categorized
on the database according to skill,
geographic area and type of charity,
allowing each employee to search for
something suitable for them. Pfizer was
not prescriptive in its approach and
allowed staff to volunteer where the
opportunity matched their personal
development goals or interests, or where
it was geographically convenient.
Opportunities were wide-ranging, from
helping in a charity shop to teaching in a
school. As management of the database
is outsourced to CC Works, there is a
constant proactivity around seeking new
opportunities and providing
administrative support that would have
been difficult to maintain in-house.
Launching the Reaching Out program
To encourage involvement and
awareness, employees were asked to
suggest a name for the revitalized
volunteering program. “Reaching Out”
(see figure 1, page 9) was chosen and
Pfizer Inc is a US global pharmaceutical
company. Founded in 1849,it employs
100,000 people and in 2006 recorded a
turnover of US$48.4 billion.
PFIZER INC
Pam Baker of Pfizer and Christine Jenkins of CC Works explain how volunteering, fundraising and payroll giving
can boost employee engagement and professional development as well as being “the right thing to do”.
© Melcrum publishing 2007.For more information visit our website www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com
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