Athena Polydorou:
Good afternoon. My name is Athena Polydorou, and I am the managing director of the ESG community here at the Manufacturers Alliance. Thank you for joining us for today's "Staying in STEM: Keys to Acquire & Retain Manufacturing Talent" webinar. For those new to the Manufacturers Alliance, we are a nonprofit membership organization supporting manufacturing companies since 1933. We help manufacturing leaders make smarter business decisions through professional development events like this [00:00:30.425] one, and our membership, which connects executives with peers in similar functions from the manufacturing industry.

I'd like to cover a few logistics before we get started. Attendees are on mute, but you do have the opportunity to type a question in throughout today's presentation. Feel free to write in a question, as they come up, into the Q&A tab at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We will be reserving the last 10 minutes for Q&A. We will be recording the webinar, and we will provide a link to this recording [00:01:00.623] and the slides tomorrow. I'd also like to give a big thanks to Bright Horizons for sponsoring and leading today's session. Bright Horizons works with clients to design and deliver highly effective, flexible, and personalized benefit programs that meet demands in this new world of work.

Today, we are joined by Ryan Burke, who has been with Eli Lilly and Company for over 33 years, with various roles in HR, finance, and manufacturing. Currently, he [00:01:30.237] is in the facilities management organization, responsible for driving strategy and managing relationships with all the people and departments that enhance employee experience. Dr. Elizabeth Myers, the senior director of thought leadership for Bright Horizons Workforce Consulting, is also with us. Dr. Myers is responsible for conducting original research on topics of interest to Bright Horizons clients, as well as custom research consultation for clients and prospects. Her career spans for-profit, [00:02:00.503] nonprofit, and government sectors, with over a decade of experience leading research, evaluation, and analytics projects, primarily within the domains of education and human development. Ryan, Dr. Myers, thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Myers, I'll turn it over to you.

Dr. Elizabeth Myers:
Thank you so much for that introduction. We're so happy to be here today. There's never been a better time for us to be discussing how to support employees in the manufacturing [00:02:30.271] space. As you know, there has been a recent focus on the U.S. manufacturing industry, with several pieces of legislation creating momentum. That includes the Investment and Jobs Act, the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act, also known as CHIPS, and the Inflation Reduction Act. I've actually seen some CHIPS funding announcements popping up recently, so very, very exciting times.

And, at the same time, Deloitte finds that 83% [00:03:00.723] of manufacturers say attracting and retaining a quality workforce to be their top challenge. Forward-thinking manufacturing employers are looking to create a culture of care and flexibility as a key way to attract and retain top talent. So, today, we're gonna share some findings from one of our recent reports, "Child Care, Education, and the STEM Workforce, and how these findings can help you attract, support, and retain manufacturing employees. Plus, I'm very delighted that Ryan Burke has [00:03:30.796] joined us, who leads employee experience at Lilly, and will share some of the ways that this leading medicine company is supporting employees so that they can advance science to solve some of the world's most significant health challenges. So, before we dive in, Ryan, would you like to go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Lilly?

Ryan Burke:
Hi, Elizabeth. Thank you very much. Yes. So, my name is Ryan Burke. I've been, as Athena and Elizabeth mentioned, been with Lilly for over [00:04:00.201] 33 years, have had a variety of different careers during that time, roles in facilities planning, procurement, small business development, HR, through relocation, through recruiting, and then for the last 7 years, in the employee amenities, facilities space, responsible for our fitness, food, and fun, is the easiest way to think about it. So, like they mentioned in my bio, I manage and drive [00:04:30.278] strategy for all those folks that help us be well at Lilly.

Dr. Myers:
Thank you, Ryan. I'm gonna start us off by jumping into some data, just to frame our conversation. At Bright Horizons, we regularly conduct original research. That includes an annual modern family index survey on topics relevant to what's happening in the world of work each year. And shortly, we're gonna release our 10-year anniversary report. So, exciting things to come there. And in addition to [00:05:00.396] ongoing research, we conduct specific topic-focused research studies, including one focused on millennials and Gen Z, and our most recent study, which focused on science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM, employees' needs, particularly in the manufacturing and life sciences space.

So, let's take a little bit of a deeper look at that study. Although it was focused on STEM industries, those were very broadly defined to the survey [00:05:30.218] participants. And the takeaways can really apply across manufacturing segments, as well as other segments of the economy as well, where a highly skilled workforce is really important. So, we found, of course, there is a robust need to attract, retain, and grow skilled workers. That's not only for the success of individual organizations, but also in support of the U.S. economy as a whole, as these industries support 69% of the U.S. [00:06:00.574] GDP. And STEM manufacturing workers in our high demand and short supply, with 3.5 million STEM jobs predicted to be open by 2025 and, 2 million or more of those positions going unfilled because of a lack of skilled candidates.

So, nationwide, childcare benefits for employees' children, as well as education benefits for the employees themselves, are increasingly being used to attract new talent, to retain [00:06:30.543] current talent, and to shine lights on organizations as employers of choice, like so many of you. And we found that childcare can foster an environment conducive to both collaboration and innovation. Within the survey, more than half of the parents said that childcare difficulties were impacting their attendance at work. In addition to that, we also found that 40% of parents said that [00:07:00.177] childcare difficulties were impacting their productivity when they were at work, and 34% said childcare difficulties were impacting their ability to collaborate and their ability to innovate at work. And that was 34% in each of those categories. And nearly everyone, 96% of those surveyed, said that it was important to grow their career in the next one to three years. But two-thirds of parents reported that childcare issues are actually holding [00:07:30.178] them back from their career growth as well. So, it's not just, you know, attendance at work and productivity difficulties, but also, you know, thinking about growing and developing within their goals.

And nearly every parent who expressed an interest in growing their education said, you know, related that childcare was important to achieving those education goals. For many, education and additional training go hand in hand with career growth, [00:08:00.178] especially in industries such as manufacturing, that require a highly-skilled workforce and changing skills. Additionally, in this research, we found that a majority of parents and non-parents do plan to change their employer eventually. Seven percent indicated that they plan to change their employer within the next year. And they said to us that educational opportunities for both themselves and their [00:08:30.313] children will impact their career moves. Nearly all participants said that an opportunity to advance their own education would impact their decision to change employers, as would on-site childcare or backup childcare options for their children.

Similarly, for participants in the survey who had already left a STEM manufacturing industry, they said that high-quality on-site childcare would impact their decision to return back to the industry. This is especially important for [00:09:00.459] women. In the survey, perhaps unsurprisingly, but unfortunately, women were significantly more likely to report having left a STEM manufacturing organization. And according to a recent McKinsey survey, 69% of job-searching mothers with young children said they'd be more likely to choose an employer that offered on-site childcare or financial assistance for childcare. And more than 80% of both men and women said that childcare benefits [00:09:30.717] would be an important factor in their decision to stay with their existing employer.

There's a lot more information in the report, a link that will be available in both the deck that we share, and is also in the resource section of this webinar. And, Ryan, thank you so much for bearing with me as I introduced some of our recent findings. Supporting working caregivers, in particular working parents, can have such a positive impact on organizations, [00:10:00.578] as well as the employees who benefit from those programs. And Lilly has a long history of supporting working parents through your on-site childcare centers, as well as a backup care offering. So, I'm wondering, Ryan, do these research results resonate with you? Do you see your support of working caregivers having a positive impact on your employees and operations? What are your thoughts upon hearing this report as it relates to your role at Lilly?

Ryan:
Yeah, Elizabeth. Thank you. I think [00:10:30.541] this is really spot on with my experience at Lilly. We've had our child development centers, one for 28, 29 years, and the other for... Just celebrated our 24th anniversary of it. So, it's something that Lilly has felt is very important, and has been for a very long time. The backup care program, for those that aren't participating in our [00:11:00.180] on-site centers, is every bit as important to them. You know, the folks that work in the field, it really helps their ability, and we see the productivity that is gained from folks that are being able to take advantage of that. And it's not just for young children dependent care, the elder care is also part of that, that's just becoming increasingly more important as our populations age [00:11:30.267] and the growth of that aging population grows as well.

Dr. Myers:
And what are some of the other benefits that Lilly has on-site, in addition to the childcare center and backup care?

Ryan:
Yeah. Well, we live and work in... Our headquarters is in Indianapolis, Indiana. Coming up on May 10th of this year, we will be celebrating 148 years as the same company when we started back then. [00:12:00.626] We are a global company, have sales in over 130 countries, manufacturing in 13 countries, research and development in nine countries. We have a global population of about 40,000 employees. In the U.S. here, we have about 22,000. And in Indianapolis, we have somewhere around 11,000, 12,000 employees. So, you can imagine being spread out, but a major part of our U.S. [00:12:30.207] manufacturing is here in Central Indiana, and many people that are outside of Indiana think of Indiana as a cornfield. And so, as we think about attraction and retention measures, they're things that we just consider a cost of doing business to get people to even consider coming to Indianapolis. Once we can get people to Indianapolis, they see it's actually a very metropolitan city. There's a lot going on, a lot of national sports and theater and music. It's easy [00:13:00.464] to get around. It's a great place to raise a family.

And so, there's a lot of those kinds of things, but then we also recognize that we need to have other amenities for our employees, because we are focused on this thing called work-life balance, where we want people to work hard, but we also want them to live well and play as well, right? And so, we have a lot of employee amenities. Years and years ago, [00:13:30.699] the Lilly family created an on-site credit union because they recognized that everyone needed to go to a bank from time to time, and so they started creating amenities back in the 1930s and '40s because they recognized that people need to stay efficient and effective as possible in the office.

So, to that end, we now have on-site, as you'd imagine, a site with this many people, we have nine cafeterias. [00:14:00.220] We have nine fitness centers. We have the two child development centers, but we also have a lot of other employee amenities. On-site health services. If you take ill in an afternoon, you can duck in and see a nurse or a doctor. We have our annual checkups and our flu shots. If you have knee surgery and need a place to go for physical therapy, we have a full-size physical therapy lab on-site. We have our own on-site dentist and optometrist, and are looking to add [00:14:30.567] some additional services like that. We have a lot of conveniences. We have a convenience store that sells gift items and grab-and-go food, just anything that we can do to help make our employees more efficient and effective.

Given everything that I'm responsible for at Lilly, fitness, food, and fun, my philosophy is if someone invests eight hours a day to come work on-site, what can I do to help make their time here more worth their while? And so that's [00:15:00.969] kinda how I've positioned the things that I'm responsible for here at Lilly. And again, it gets back to all being really an attraction and a retention play for our employees. And we've recognized that we have to have a variety of these things available for our employees because, you know, some people have children, some people don't. Some people need to care for an elderly parent. Some people don't. So, we have all these things from which we can pick and choose. [00:15:30.265]

Dr. Myers:
That's so incredible to hear, especially the forward-thinking back with the Lilly family in the '30s, thinking about what people would need on-site as well. I have benefits envy when I hear you talking about everything that you have on campus. And it [inaudible 00:15:49] like this kind of approach is gonna be more important, given competition for talent remaining strong, and as the need for workers will continue to grow. [00:16:00.288] And I like how you mentioned differentiation of benefits as well. Not everyone needs every resource at every moment. People grow and change throughout their careers, and need different things at different times. So, love how Lilly is thinking about all the different needs people may have.

When we're thinking about the growing and changing sector, one recent report actually found [00:16:30.369] that there are gonna be more retirees than predicted. So, Bloomberg found that roughly 2.7 million more retirees are predicted to retire. And that the pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing industries in particular are nearly 50% 45 years of age and older. So, these data points indicate that there, [00:17:00.448] you know, is an influx of need for attracting and retaining younger employees, and that's gonna continue to grow in importance. And given the evolving and elevated expectations of today's younger workforce, especially, manufacturers are gonna need to look beyond offering traditional health care and retirement savings, and are gonna need to explore more nontraditional benefits, like some of them that were just mentioned. Lilly is setting such a high bar in this space.

We're also [00:17:30.383] gonna provide another perspective. We're gonna watch a short video from United Therapeutic, a biopharma company that is seeing a similar positive impact from its two on-site childcare centers.

VIDEO START:

Alyssa Friedrich:
I think it's important for employers to help with the childcare crisis, because it is a very taxing experience.

Holly Hobson:
Being able to offer and having this program in place has been an absolute competitive advantage in attracting and retaining, you know, research and development [00:18:00.824] talent, our manufacturing talent, where our voluntary turnover, compared to industry, is nearly half.

Joe Bender:
Having the center here really makes me feel great about United Therapeutics as an employer. It's, of course, one of my favorite perks about working here.

Lana Abuelhawa:
For me, this was a huge part of my decision to join the company seven years ago, before I even had any children, because I knew that ultimately, I was interested in starting a family, and [00:18:30.324] I wanted to be at a place that would provide a benefit like this.

Holly:
Why do we have a childcare center on-site? Because our CEO wanted to be sure that we didn't lose employees. We wanted to make sure that childcare wasn't a stress for our employees. They could focus on the great, innovative, exciting work that we're doing here at UT.

Andrew Campbell:
I get a proud moment as a dad when we hang out with other families just how [00:19:00.760] much more comfortable my kids are interacting with new people, how comfortable they are with reading and writing, and doing, like, even simple math. It shows me that Bright Horizons really has a good system in place, and I've seen the benefits of it.

Lana:
I've just been so impressed with the staff, the cleanliness of the facility, and the administration, how much care everyone really puts into making the child's experience, you know, as beneficial [00:19:30.447] as possible.

Joe:
Having my children here at the center definitely helps with my ability to do my job. It's really, I think, makes the daily routine very easy, being able to take the kids with me into work every day and then, you know, pick up, just have to walk downstairs to pick them up.

Alyssa:
Some highlights of our partnership with Bright Horizons is that they just make offering this benefit super easy. I appreciate the collaboration from a employee-employer perspective. They are informative. They help [00:20:00.242] us make decisions, and really are independent, which we're most grateful for.

Hector Nieves:
It just removes a massive layer of stress that, I can't even picture it right now how it would be without it.

Alyssa:
We only get positive comments and feedback from those that are in the childcare center. It's a state-of-the-art center, with beautiful facilities for our children. And so, they're having a wonderful first developing years of their life, and that's really important to us. And it's peace of mind to [00:20:30.907] our employees.

VIDEO END

Dr. Myers:
Moving a little bit past the younger children, one group that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle for parents is school-age children. So, we think that as children age, they require less care. But while care needs change and decrease over time, working parents still actually invest a significant amount of time in caring for their children ages 6 to 17. [00:21:00.341] Between four and six hours for those younger school-age children, and up to four hours each day for high schoolers. And depending on parent's work hours, children in the 6 to 11 age group may require before or after-school care.

And after-school care is actually increasingly hard to come by, and struggling to keep up with demand. More than half of the country's after-school programs have wait lists of students that they can't serve. And the availability of before and after-school care could be [00:21:30.286] on the decline as city, state, and federal budgets that often help pay for these programs face pressure to tighten, as the relief funds that were earmarked for the programs must be spent by the end of 2024. Those are the relief funds that came from the COVID grants.

So, I'm thinking, as we talk about, you know, the childcare center for children under, five and under, and we talked a little bit about [00:22:00.450] Lilly's backup care program, I wonder, Ryan, if you could talk a little bit more about how the childcare centers or how the backup care program supports families with older children as well.

Ryan:
Yeah. And actually, our centers go from 6 weeks to 6 years old, so they go up to their 6th birthday. We contemplated bringing on after-school care and some of those things during this thing called COVID, when [00:22:30.620] many people were working from home. Lilly was still making medicine, and so we still kept our centers open to, you know, be able to accommodate the children of the folks that were making medicine. But our enrollment went way down. We'd normally have, we like to, we'd be in the sweet spot of about 160 to 170 children out of our 192 that are possible. Right now, we're running 180 plus or minus, so we're pretty much [00:23:00.135] kinda maxed out. But during COVID, we had 30, 35 children, and so we were thinking of creative ways to try and bring in more students, help with the revenue, keep the centers a little bit more viable, because we were... Obviously, with only 30 kids, you're losing money hand over fist. And we subsidized our centers some, but it was a significant investment to keep them open, but obviously very important for those manufacturing families.

But we do have some programs that we have [00:23:30.402] created over the years. One of the amenities that I manage is a 255-acre rec park for our employees. It's immediately adjacent to our manufacturing site, but if you can just picture, there's four lakes, there's three softball diamonds, there's four sand volleyball courts, running trails, a mountain bike trail. We have a disc golf course out there, in and around the woods, but we've also created a building, a playground, [00:24:00.839] and a swimming pool that houses what we call Lilly Summer Science Camp. So, being a pharmaceutical company, we are all about science, furthering science, helping develop that next pipeline of the scientists, and making science fun for our kids.

So, starting at age 5 up to age 13, parents can take their kids for a science-based day camp, for 10 weeks during the summer. So that allows... And we'll have anywhere from 200 to... A couple of summers, we've had 300 children [00:24:30.622] there, and we changed the science theme each week. But employees can drop off their kids at the rec park and then come pick them up at the end of the day. It's a really neat benefit that we have for that. So, we're trying to do some things like that for our employees. And it was fun for me, just for a quick tangent, to watch that video, because, and it really [inaudible 00:24:52] my heartstrings because my wife and I taught our kids sign language because they could sign before they could speak, and just [00:25:01.050] seeing the lady do more, just really got me emotional. Because now my kids are grown, and I blinked, and they are out of the house. So, just brought back some neat memories.

Dr. Myers:
Aww. Thank you for sharing that, Ryan. Oh, and I love the stories about the summer camp as well. It's, just to have that much space, and to have such a fun experience available for 10 weeks as well, is just awesome. [00:25:30.486] When we include summer vacation time, working parents have approximately 85 days when school is out, and they have to find alternative care. So, to have something so fun for the kids, and also educational, while also allowing the parents to not have to take time off, is fantastic.

And workplace absences are actually a never-ending issue that the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks monthly. [00:26:00.549] So, you know, supplying backup care and supplying a summer camp option is really great. And...

Together:
Oh, I'm sorry.

Dr. Myers:
No. Please, go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan:
I was gonna say, we recognize that too, and we have a program that allows employees to purchase a week of vacation if they'd like, if they feel like they need more vacation. We've also implemented a program... Years ago, we had a plant shutdown between the holidays, [00:26:30.743] Christmas and New Year's. And about five or six years ago, we added another plant shutdown week, of July 4th. So, employees get those two weeks, essentially, off, and don't count towards your vacation time, because we found that employees, when they went on vacation, they weren't fully disconnecting. So, you still monitor email, and stay on top of that pile a little bit. And we really recognize that [00:27:00.431] people aren't fully disconnecting and recharging their batteries. So, we implemented the second shutdown week, which has been really a neat program.

And during this thing called COVID, we also recognized the importance of flexibility, and we were forced to be comfortable with it. We weren't. We were very slow to react, but it really forced us to be comfortable, and what we recognized was that [00:27:30.198] we actually were significantly more productive than we thought we would be. And so, we've sort of adopted that. But we've adopted a program too for our employees to come back on-site, and really, we've taken the carrot approach versus the stick approach, not forcing people to do it, but, depending on the job, and giving them incentive to want to come on-site and collaborate, because there is a [00:28:00.292] distinct benefit from being on-site and working amongst your colleagues, but you do have that flexibility, which has been very well-received, so... Sorry, Elizabeth. I cut you off.

Dr. Myers:
No. Do not apologize. I am so happy that you shared that information on the flexibility and the shutdowns. It's really refreshing to hear an organization listening so closely to the needs of their employees [00:28:30.558] and figuring out ways to support them, while also, you know, being successful still, you know? So, it's still, you know, making things happen for Lilly, as well as making things happen for your employees. So, please feel free to interrupt me anytime with your excellent stories. I enjoy hearing them, and I'm sure the audience does as well.

So, one of the things that we are actually hearing more and more from other clients is that they have more employees within the sandwich generation, [00:29:00.484] meaning that they're taking care of both their aging parents and children at the same time. And this matches some of the data out there too. More than half of Americans in their 40s are caring for children and an aging parent, and this is going to continue to grow as baby boomers continue to age. Within our own recent survey of millennials and Gen Zs, we found that they feel stressed out about their parents' physical, mental, and financial well-being. [00:29:30.500] And that's both those who already have direct caregiving responsibilities, but also those who don't yet have caregiving responsibilities directly are starting to feel the stress, anticipating what to do as their parents age.

And in the U.S., family members provide an immense amount of support for elder care. According to the AARP, the economic value of family caregivers' unpaid contributions to the economy is approximately $600 billion. [00:30:00.808] And that's based on providing an average of 18 hours of care each week. So, you know, it's an average. Employee caring for children and a parent, they could be spending a significant more amount of time each week. Ryan, what are some of your thoughts on sandwiched employees at Lilly?

Ryan:
Yeah. That's interesting. It made me think of some things that I hadn't really thought of too. As I've seen over the years, parents [00:30:30.723] are waiting to have children longer, so it just makes sense that we'll see more sandwich employees, if you will, right? Because when my parents' generation, they were in their early 20s having children, and now it seems it's very common for parents to be in their early 30s and older. So, that just seems like that's something that's gonna continue to evolve.

We have had a [00:31:00.354] suggestion from an employee to not only have our child development centers on-site, but maybe we have an elder day care center. It's not something that we've bid off on yet, but it is something that has been asked. So, there's all kinds of things that we certainly look to, and are considering, as we evolve. So, you know, more to come on that, I would think. [00:31:30.391] Yeah. So, I mean, it's interesting, but, again, these are all things that I think are a cost of doing business, as society changes and the workforce morphs, right?

Dr. Myers:
Absolutely. And does Lilly have employee resource groups to help people support each other that are going through [crosstalk 00:31:52] ?

Ryan:
Yes. Yeah. We do. We found a very long time ago, and it started, with Lilly, it started [00:32:00.375] really in employee activities. So, currently, we have over 30 sports and hobby clubs that are a great way to help people make this big, scary company a little more intimate, especially new people to the area, because you can find people, and start developing friendships that, you know, colleagues that have similar interests to you. We have all the various sports leagues, right? Volleyball, basketball, softball, soccer, flag football. We also have martial arts. [00:32:30.392] We have a Lilly Chorus. We have a pickleball club. We have a knitting club, a homebrewers club, all kinds of things. Pretty much if you do it, there's someone here that also does it, is really what I say to folks. But it's such a great way to get involved and start meeting people, start to feel included. And then, if you feel included, our agenda is that you feel like you belong, and that's really what we're hoping. Because if you feel like you belong, then you're more likely to be happy on [00:33:00.317] the job, happy at home, and more likely to stay with us longer.

And we started that well back in the 1930s and 1940s, if you can believe it. But to your specific question about employee resource groups, we have over a dozen employee resource groups now, that are another great way to get involved and learn about different cultures. We have a Chinese Culture Network, Black Employees at Lilly. We have Lilly India Network, Japanese Leadership Network, Veteran Leadership [00:33:30.552] Network, a women leadership network. We have a pride group, and we have a group that's focused on workers with disabilities, we call EnAble. And so, being in the facilities world, we partner with many of these groups to learn about how can we improve the facilities to help improve their experience. If you're sight impaired, sure, our buildings meet code, but there's some other things that we have found where we really need to just take it to another level, so that folks that are sight [00:34:00.184] impaired can just function, and be like any "normal employee," right? That they don't need special attention or care.

And same with hearing impaired. So, we have been partnering with many of these groups for those kinds of things. Being responsible for our food. I also got the cultural groups together to understand what can we do to help improve the food experience at Lilly, because, of all things, I'd witnessed a lot of Indian nationals bringing their lunch to work, and I just wanted to understand [00:34:30.565] why. And the long and the short of it was, I found out that 80% are vegetarian, and we had zero options in our cafeterias for that. And it was just a simple thing. Now we have dedicated vegetarian, gluten-free. We're starting in with halal and kosher foods as well. So, having these resource groups is a great thing, again, for us to get employees dialed in, in their community and, you know, participating in things.

Dr. Myers:
Those are such [00:35:00.760] terrific stories of how, you know, people can bond with each other, and then also, you know, help make the workplace a better place. So, thank you for sharing those examples. I really appreciate them.

Ryan:
And I'll give you one quick little anecdote. You know, here we are, in Indianapolis, in the middle of Cornfield, Indiana, a fun statistic at our corporate center is on any given day, we have 50 different languages spoken at this site, which is, I think, a [00:35:30.660] testament to the diversity we have, that Lilly has really brought in to central Indiana, but a fun data point that I love to share with people, and it came from a little toddler at one of our child development centers, the little boy got picked up by his dad, and he said, "Dad, did you know that Puerto Ricans make great friends?" Which I just think is so adorable, because, you know, not only at Lilly, but because of the diversity that we have [00:36:00.663] at Lilly, even our kids are, you know, exposed to that, and understand and see the value that all of that brings. So, pretty neat.

Dr. Myers:
Yeah. Fifty different languages. That's such a great fun fact, and testament to the diversity at Lilly. Thank you for sharing that. Do you ever utilize the ERGs for communication about benefits, or is there another way that Lilly likes to communicate? Or [00:36:30.455] what are some of the ways that Lilly communicates about benefits?

Ryan:
Well, yeah. We have our annual enrollment thing, but every company has those things, and we'll communicate those. We have a program called Week of Well-being, that is actually coming up the week of May 6th, where we bring in all the companies that help us be well as an employee. And it was funny, when I, I didn't really fully understand my own Lilly benefits until I got into recruiting. Prior to [00:37:00.547] my current role, I was in recruiting, and that's when I had to speak to all of my benefits. So, I had to really quickly learn about the benefits that Lilly had.

And that's how most people are. You don't know about, really, or pay attention to the child development centers until you start to have children. So, when you do, then you need to know where to go to get that information, and learn about it. So, we've started creating this Week of Well-being, where we bring all these companies that help us be financially well, [00:37:30.850] physically well, mentally, socially, in our community, the volunteer opportunities, those kinds of things, for people to really make it easy for them to learn about the benefits that they already have, that they might not even know about. So, that's one way where we do, that we help people understand more about, you know, their benefits and things.

Dr. Myers:
It's funny that you mentioned that even you weren't totally on top of all the benefits that Lilly had, because [00:38:00.966] our survey and other surveys have found that nearly half of employees say that their company benefits were never clearly explained to them or defined to them. I think this stems from, you know, needing communication in many forms, as you've talked about as well. You know, an employee might not need a benefit when they hear about it for the first time, at onboarding, or they may not see an email that comes, you know, while they're on vacation, and then they might forget a benefit even exists until their life changes and they need it, [00:38:30.911] and they don't know it's there. So, thank you for sharing your different ways of communicating benefits. It's so important to do it in so many different ways. And...

Ryan:
We don't read. I'm on these pictures, and you learned that as we were preparing for the webcast today. So, yeah. You're right, we are. We are all different.

Dr. Myers:
Multiple ways of communication. Let's turn a little bit away from the family care benefits and [00:39:00.680] towards the education benefits. I know Lilly has a support system for their employees through an education assistance program. We find education assistance to be a crucial piece of talent strategy, especially for companies where innovation happens really quickly, and skills need to evolve. Can you tell us a little bit more about your education program?

Ryan:
Yeah. That's something that's, you know, we've certainly learned that, and have been doing that for a very long [00:39:30.659] time. But we offer education assistance for someone that is working full-time, and they wanna pursue an advanced degree, and that can be an undergraduate degree or a graduate degree. The company will reimburse them up to, I think it's $5,500 annually towards their tuition if they continue to work full-time, so that they can pursue that advanced degree, and that has been something that's been very popular, and Bright Horizons has been a great partner for [00:40:00.513] us to help administer that program.

We have company-sponsored education leave, as well as, you know, we'll select a few individuals each year to go, and we'll fund their MBA for them. But we also have programs for all of us ordinary people too, which has been very popular and very well-received.

Dr. Myers:
Great. Then [00:40:30.543] I think, as well, that your program has a 93% retention rate over the past six years, for those with tuition reimbursement, which is just very impressive.

Ryan:
Well, and some of that... Yeah, that's true. Because we have folks, they have to have a little skin in the game, if you will. So, you know, if we're helping them, and investing in them, we want them to stay with us. So, there's some incentive for [00:41:00.415] them to stay, that we have built into that program as well. So, it's kind of a contract that we have with folks.

Dr. Myers:
Great. It's a great win-win. And according to a recent report that it takes an average of 105 days to fill a non-executive role in life sciences, and it costs about $500 a day. So that actually adds up to more than $50,000 for [00:41:30.840] just one role. So, retention, it's very important, especially when investing in employees. So, thank you for sharing a little bit about the education program.

Ryan:
Yeah. Yeah. My pleasure.

Dr. Myers:
And before... We're running along here. Before we wrap up, are there any results and benefits that you're seeing from your initiatives that you wanna share with us?

Ryan:
Results from things that are working?

Dr. Myers:
Yeah. What's working?

Ryan:
Yeah. I mean, [00:42:00.483] really, many of the programs that I've discussed already seem to be really working. We have implemented a few others. We're working with, and really helped fund, a local STEM high school. It's called Purdue Polytechnic. It's a partnership between Lilly and Purdue University to create a high school that's focused on STEM kinds of curriculum, [00:42:30.675] and Lilly has been very supportive of things like that. We're also partnering with local universities to provide designated internships for some select students, and we've partnered with Purdue and some others for those kinds of programs, getting in at the freshman and sophomore level, to help drive the curriculum, and expose them to our industry early. [00:43:00.528]

It's interesting. I spend a lot of time recruiting engineers, pharmacy doctors, scientists, looking for biologists, chemists, biochemists, engineers, of course, chemical engineers, but mechanical, electrical, and industrial. And not a lot of mechanical, electrical, industrial engineers grow up thinking of a pharmaceutical company. A pharma company, sure, you do. So, it was really a struggle for us to get a mechanical [00:43:30.190] engineer to think about Lilly. But once we got them on-site, they got to see some of these pretty neat toys that we work with and play with, that they would get to experience. And so, our ability to get people in early, to expose them to what we do, we have found has been very valuable in our attraction, and ultimately, retention.

Dr. Myers:
That's great. [00:44:00.755] So, that's it for my questions for you, Ryan. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. And we're gonna wrap up with a quick video from another manufacturer, of Hormel Foods. They're actually opening their very first childcare center in rural Minnesota this month. So, very exciting.

VIDEO START:

Angie Bissen:
We just continued to hear that childcare was becoming [00:44:30.682] a barrier for attracting and retaining talent for us. You know, not only attracting talent into our organization, but attracting talent to move internally to Austin for career development or experiences. You know, with some of our largest manufacturing facilities and positions here at our corporate office, it's really important for us to be able to get people to come to Austin and get that experience. And [00:45:00.174] we were hearing that it was becoming a challenge, that, you know, younger families were not wanting to move here because of a lack of childcare availability.

You know, and not unique to Hormel, you heard earlier that the demographics of the workforce are changing. And so, for us, this issue's not gonna go away. It's been about a five-year journey for us, trying to gain the support, and get to this point where we've broke ground. And throughout that five years, we've only seen that lack of childcare accessibility [00:45:30.795] continue to compound and get worse. And as we, you know, have boomers exiting the workforce, and more people coming in that are in family-building years, this was just a really important initiative for us to take on.

And we really had to work on educating that this investment isn't just to benefit parents. It definitely helps parents, by providing that reliable childcare, but it helps the productivity of the [00:46:00.743] workforce. It helps the reliability of your teams. It lowers absenteeism. So, you know, if I'm an empty nester on a team, and my coworkers are calling out of work because they don't have childcare, that impacts me. And so, we really kinda had to paint that holistic picture, that childcare not only helps parents, but it helps, you know, the workforce as a whole, as well as economic development of the community. And that was really where we started to gain, you know, the buy-in of [00:46:30.725] the leaders.

VIDEO END

Athena:
Thank you both, Dr. Myers and Ryan. It was great to hear about the truly innovative benefits of Lilly and Bright Horizons' insights into talent acquisition and retention. I echo Dr. Myers' earlier comment. It's very easy to have benefits envy when hearing about all the supports that Lilly is offering their employees.

Let's turn to a little Q&A before we wrap [00:47:00.692] up. So, as a reminder to everyone on the line, you do have the ability to ask a question. So, please do submit your question at the bottom of your screen. Dr. Myers, let's start with you. Recruiting and keeping females in STEM is especially important. Did you have any insights you could give us from your research on... You know, what's the difference there?

Dr. Myers:
That's a great question, and a very important topic. So, in our survey that we just conducted, [00:47:30.822] as I mentioned in my comments, women were significantly more likely to report having left a STEM manufacturing organization than the men in the survey. However, the results for the individual questions weren't notably or statistically significantly different between men and women in regards to their need for education and care benefits. That, frankly, surprised me. I did expect to see [00:48:00.498] a difference. But my theory there is kind of twofold. I think dads are becoming more forthcoming, especially in an anonymous survey, about their needs in the education and care space, and that women who have already found success in the STEM field probably have had to navigate their way through some of these challenges already.

So, the survey was focused on manufacturing within STEM industries broadly defined. [00:48:30.566] I imagine a different type of survey, we might find different results, especially if we were looking at different topics. But here, focusing on education and care needs, we didn't find any significant differences.

Athena:
Excellent. Ryan,...

Ryan:
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:48:46] Yeah. But before you switch questions, Athena, apologies for interrupting, but it reminded me of something that Lilly, and it was an add-on to one of Dr. Myers' earlier questions around employee resource groups. We have [00:49:00.308] some family support groups also at Lilly, that we've learned over the years we need to really have. We have a dads-to-dads club, because there's things that, you know, dads need to talk about. We have a moms-to-moms club, and that evolved from... Early years, it was called the "bump group," and then they all had their babies, and then they quickly called themselves the "pump group." But then it morphed into Moms to Moms. But it reminded me, because we do have some other benefits that... [00:49:30.748] Fathers need to support their wives that have just had children. And so, we created a 10-week leave of absence for paternity leave, for our dads if they have children, and that's in an effort to help their spouse or significant other with the baby, and help her needs as well, so...

Athena:
Excellent. That leads me to my next question, which was to ask you about [00:50:00.042] the employee experience. What are you hearing? What are you seeing? You know, you've touched on many different amenities and benefits. I thought your insights into... You had a whole, kind of a forgotten group, which is the vegetarians, whether that's for religious reasons or otherwise, or cultural or whatever. But, you know, just kind of keeping yourself aware of, like, what are the needs of your employees, and I would imagine that really lends [00:50:30.728] itself to a sense of belonging, right, at the company. You don't feel like an outsider. So, just wondered if you had anything to share with us about shaping the employee experience, and how you've used this.

Ryan:
Yeah. I mean, it's things that I've mentioned before. You know, with the employee resource groups, they have resources available to them, that the company provides, so that they feel like they can celebrate, and be part of the organization. The Lilly India [00:51:00.825] Network, for example, celebrates Diwali every year, the celebration of lights. And so, you know, we will support that through what we offer on menus throughout all of our cafeterias during the week of Diwali. Same with the Chinese Culture Network and the Chinese New Year.

So, there's a variety of different things. We're in the middle of, we're getting ready to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which is a Muslim holiday [00:51:30.397] that, you know, is pretty neat to learn about these kinds of things. And being in my role, I try and learn as much as I can, but it's really kinda hard, where do you pick and choose, because there are so many. But it's pretty neat that we embrace all of these things. So, yeah, it's neat to be a part of all of that.

Athena:
We had another question come through with regard to day care on-site for employees. [00:52:00.433] There is a question as to, if employees pay for that, if it's covered, if it's some kind of a combination of the two?

Ryan:
For our centers, the company subsidizes the centers. We own the buildings, pay the utilities and the maintenance, and those kinds of things. The tuition for the children is paid for by the parents, and that tuition is used to pay the management fees [00:52:30.216] and operations of the centers. So, it's a combination.

Athena:
Sure. It makes sense. Dr. Myers, are you seeing similar setups with the other clients that you work with?

Dr. Myers:
Yes. It's a very familiar setup. [crosstalk 00:52:47] in kind provide their building area, and then we provide the childcare services.

Athena:
Fantastic. Well, I think that'll [00:53:00.159] bring us to the close. Thank you to Bright Horizons and to our speakers, Dr. Myers and to Ryan, for sharing your insights with us today, and have a great day.

Ryan:
My pleasure. Thank you.

Dr. Myers:
Thank you.

Ryan:
Thanks for letting me participate.

END OF TRANSCRIPT.