As a new era for pharma begins to unfold life sciences pioneers are changing their environments

At AstraZeneca UK we’re making moves. As the UK’s leading biopharmaceutical company, one of our ongoing aspirations has been to continue finding ways to support the UK’s health and part of that process has led to the relocation of our UK commercial head office to London’s Pancras Square in the heart of the vibrant ‘Knowledge Quarter’.

But what is it that makes big companies like ourselves strike out and change their workspace? At AstraZeneca UK, it’s about a renewed ambition to drive collaboration and innovation both internally and with the diverse ecosystem of organisations across the UK health terrain.

Our strategic partnerships with the NHS and beyond allow us to tackle some of the country’s biggest health challenges. We’re on a mission to transform population health by working in ambitious, purpose-led partnerships that drive sustainable, evidence-based change and create shared value.

With our primary mission being to deliver life-changing medicines, we’ve looked at every aspect of our environment to find opportunities that improve our ability to collaborate and innovate in a way that makes a difference to patients’ lives.

This starts in our places of work – be it the office, the lab, the manufacturing facility and increasingly our homes. People are at the heart of everything we do at AstraZeneca and a new office space can create the physical and virtual environment where our people can thrive.

So how does an office move really make a difference? Many companies are rethinking how they handle office operations and human resources following the shift online that took place over the last few years. Now we are all having to adapt to a world where flexible working is vital to success.

New digs: AstraZeneca’s flexible, inclusive and diverse dwellings
AstraZeneca office image credit: King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership / John Sturrock

In HR, the last couple of years have given us the gift of reflection, especially as we’re entering a new stage in the evolution of the workplace. At the start of the pandemic many HR departments across the globe had to quickly implement short-term solutions to address the challenges caused by the shift in work from the office to the home, while ensuring the safety of their employees.

Now, this new phase is being defined by adapting to those challenges and considering their impact on the workplace long term. We are taking bold new approaches that are being pioneered and tested, and we’re evaluating their success through a cycle of transparent feedback from our people, ensuring we find the right balance in this next stage of the workspace evolution.

What has emerged is a flexible dimension – something that at its core allows us to communicate our needs more efficiently and collaborate dynamically. With this in mind, our new office space focuses on emphasising creative collaborative spaces, centred around 360-degree meeting rooms which use the latest camera technology to make everyone feel part of a real-life environment regardless of people being there physically or virtually.

This period of change has also allowed us to address the inert office workings that we were all so inherently used to, such as the daily commute. As we grow into our new space, we are anticipating the need to be flexible in order to find the right balance, especially around the hours we’re expected to traditionally be in the office.

Now more than ever, it’s important to re-evaluate the 9–5 model. While changes here aren’t suited for all our staff during their working-time, such as our operations colleagues in manufacturing facilities, we are looking to enable an atmosphere of agility and flexibility for everyone. This will mean we can be more mindful as employers and colleagues, while dialling up the vibrancy of our workspaces.

In the context of the benefits of flexible working, we must also acknowledge that face-to-face interactions are key to collaboration and driving innovation with a diverse workforce. A balance must be found between the two to make our work truly impactful.

To that end, we’re creating more opportunities for more meaningful connections to be made outside the workspace, encouraging one-to-one meetings to take place along the nearby canal, local parks or somewhere in between. We want to create environments where people want to be, physically and virtually.

Physical proximity to colleagues is only part of the picture. Looking for spaces that are accessible to our partners is also essential to creating purpose-led partnerships that can address the biggest challenges faced by the UK’s health system.

As we saw recently when we opened our Discovery Centre in Cambridge, our geographical proximity to our partners helped encourage open interaction with the scientific community. It furthered our ability to expand on the 200 or so collaborations AstraZeneca has in the Cambridge area, allowing partnerships to innovate in the field of life sciences.

Our new commercial offices have this same intent in mind – creating collaborative physical spaces to work with our partners across the life sciences quarter, which supplement the virtual collaborations that we have become accustomed to over the past years.

As with any pharmaceutical company, we’re eager for our teams to consistently uphold innovation and do so in an environment that allows them to thrive. Leaders have an accountability towards employees for their well-being, learning and development, as much as they do towards shareholders for performance.

There is no one-size-fits-all, but a constant listening, offering and adapting exercise – at the individual and organisational level – is the way forward, and has become more of a possibility with a primarily office-based, yet flexible working model.