AstraZeneca staff are world leaders in biopharmaceuticals who share a common purpose: to push the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines.
As an organisation centred around what makes us human, AstraZeneca put a big focus on people. Providing opportunities for staff, focusing on training and development, and promoting inclusion and diversity are all key pillars at the heart of the business.
Becoming accredited with the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 has allowed each of these aspects to flourish. That’s according to the team involved and William Goundry, Principal Scientist at AstraZeneca, who acts as 澳门六合彩开奖记录 scheme co-ordinator.
AstraZeneca first sought accreditation with the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 in 2014. As one of the major employers in the industry, they wanted to do all they could to support the chemical sciences in the UK. Part of that included working with a professional body to help provide opportunities for chemists.
Meet the team
| Accredited member |
William Goundry |
|---|---|
| Position |
Principal Scientist |
| Membership classification | CSci CChem F澳门六合彩开奖记录 |
| Accredited member |
Jack Cleary |
|---|---|
| Position |
Analytical Scientist |
| Membership classification |
Setting up the scheme
William said: “We wanted to set up a Chartered Chemist (CChem) award as a key professional support for chemists. We recognised the value in it for creating a framework for the professional development of staff. The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 team were extremely helpful from the start. They offered lots of advice on how to set up the scheme, which included letting us know how other companies run their schemes and how we might set our own up."
We initially rolled out CChem only at certain sites, and then when we came around to reaccreditation, we had the opportunity to discuss its success and we expanded to include more awards across more of our sites. It now covers all of AstraZeneca’s UK sites, covering scientists across all stages of their career.
“CChem is for our more experienced scientists, awarded directly and through CPD. We’ve awarded about 50 CChem over the last five years. In addition, we have a modern apprenticeship scheme, whereby towards the end of their apprenticeship, candidates can work towards a Registered Scientist (RSci) award. We also have a high number of industrial placement students every year who work towards RSci and that is seen as a very desirable thing for them to achieve in their placement.”
Team building and networking
As an international company, AstraZeneca employs people from all over the world with different backgrounds and qualifications. CChem brings them together, celebrating diverse expressions of professional standards.
William said: “On the accreditation team we have people from numerous different sites and departments who join together to deliver CChem, so it’s been a real boost in keeping us all connected, particularly during the pandemic.”
In addition, the mentoring aspect of the scheme has enabled us as an organisation to share our experience better. We actively encourage people to have a mentor who isn’t their line manager but also isn’t in their direct area of work. We have quite big sites so at a minimum it would be someone from a different building, maybe someone from a different business area. This enables people who are on our schemes to have a different input to their career and their development. Our mentors help individuals to think more broadly than just how their immediate project is going and more about their career, in the wider business and other opportunities.
“This is good for the candidates, but it is also good for the mentors to be chatting broadly across the company with more junior staff, and it allows you to understand the quality of the staff, what their areas of expertise are and what areas as a company we need to focus on developing.”
STEM community outreach
An important part of the accredited scheme is community outreach. Being enrolled on the scheme enables AstraZeneca staff to partake in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, as a means of working towards and maintaining CChem status.
William said: “AZ has always been very keen and supportive of people doing science outreach activities, and a key part of the CChem award is about playing a wider role in the chemical sciences. So, it’s really saying that if you’re a Chartered Chemist, you should be contributing more widely than your day job. This can be in chemical education, helping the public understand science, visiting schools or doing careers talks. That’s something AZ strongly supports.”
For example, candidates have founded science clubs in schools, supported the Big Bang science fair and hosted school visits to AstraZeneca sites. The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 attributes look for quite a high-level involvement in the chemistry community. There are so many benefits to this – it’s great for personal and professional development, it benefits the wider community and it’s important for AstraZeneca from a reputational perspective.
Shaping CChem
William said: “The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 has continued its support to the AstraZeneca scheme and is now a sort of critical friend. The team are very supportive but also gives very candid feedback on things that need improving or changing. That has allowed us to both grow and strengthen our scheme. It takes a while to build up schemes of this size. Eight years on and we are now moving into quite a mature scheme and are able to feedback to the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 on what works and vice versa.”
One of the things we've enjoyed as an accredited scheme is interacting as a stakeholder on the qualifications. So, CChem recently went through a refresh of attributes, and our team was quite involved and provided feedback. It felt like we were working with the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 to shape the future of CChem itself. Being an employer stakeholder is kind of saying, ‘These are the things that are important to us as an employer, these are how we see them reflected in the attributes and this is what will be important for us moving forward.
“We were strongly supportive of keeping a robust attribute around involvement in wider chemical sciences. We were conscious that as a multinational company which is already supportive of volunteering days, it was easy for us to say that. For some smaller companies, it may be harder for them to make time for staff to take part in outreach. So, we played a part in making CChem a lot more accessible for every type of company and for more people, depending on their circumstances.”
The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 is dedicated to the advancement of the chemical sciences. Our accreditation scheme gives chemists a fully supported route to industry recognition.
Equality, inclusion and diversity in science
William works closely with the accreditation scheme and the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 to shape and improve the scheme, with a focus on boosting equality, diversity and inclusion throughout every stage.
He said: “When I joined AstraZeneca 16 years ago, it was largely white male staff with very little diversity at the kind of sites I worked on. Since then, AstraZeneca has been on a cultural journey, both in terms of diversity and attitudes. Our staff now come from very diverse backgrounds, and we’re constantly working on evolving and making it a more diverse workplace – accreditation helps with that.
“One example is that it encouraged us to look at support for those entering the scheme. There are a lot of documents to work through, and not everyone is best suited to working through forms. Upon reflection, we think that offering calls or interviews will make the process more accessible. It's an ongoing challenge to make our recruitment more diverse and consider what we can do to get more diverse people into the company. The industrial placements and apprenticeship schemes have really helped with that. We’re seeing more young people come into the business and people from different backgrounds, providing alternative entry routes into the industry.”
For me, the most rewarding part is watching people develop over time and grow as individuals. I feel very lucky that I'm involved in the accreditation steering team and that I mentor a few individuals myself. It’s great to witness how many people are going through the scheme and all of the people it's helping.
One of the people who are benefitting from the scheme is Jack Cleary, Graduate Analytical Scientist at AstraZeneca.
Read Jack’s story:
How RSci helped a graduate on his journey at AstraZeneca
Jack Cleary, graduate analytical scientist, joined AstraZeneca as an industrial placement student during his final year at university. He was elected as a student representative on a committee set up by AstraZeneca to manage the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 scheme, giving him the opportunity to work towards gaining an RSci award.
From there, Jack secured a permanent role at AstraZeneca and has since remained on the committee to help the next wave of students who join. He said, “being involved in the committee has been fantastic as it has exposed him to more opportunities than he expected when entering the industrial placement.”
The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 is dedicated to the advancement of the chemical sciences. Our accreditation scheme gives chemists a fully supported route to industry recognition.
Supporting the next generation of talent
Jack said the scheme has helped to bring a lot of different people together, from various backgrounds, and provides great networking opportunities, particularly for those starting off in their careers.
It can be overwhelming when you first join a company as a graduate with not a lot of experience. It can be daunting to build a network and push yourself out there. But for me, being involved in the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 scheme and the committee has helped me to meet an incredibly wide range of people with different skills and experience, and I know more about what they do in their day-to-day work. I now have a better idea of who to go to for certain work or advice, because I have learned from different people and know the skillsets they have.
“People also reach out to me on LinkedIn and want to talk about RSci and find out more about the accreditation side of things, which is also great as you connect with so many new people in the wider industry. I’m really looking forward to continuing my professional and personal development with the scheme, working towards CChem in the future, and potentially bringing in new student representatives every year and working with them.”
William said, “Jack is a perfect example of how the 澳门六合彩开奖记录 scheme is helping with the creation of opportunities within the chemical sciences while promoting greater diversity within the team.”
He said: “This is only the second time an industrial placement student rep has immediately got a job at AstraZeneca and then rotated into a role on the committee. It’s an example of just how hard Jack has worked. We’re delighted to have him and it’s a really nice way to have some diversity in the committee as well. There is a danger that it ends up being all senior scientists or senior managers which puts an age demographic on it, but it’s much better to have a more diverse team and age profile so that we can have a better range of perspectives.”
“In addition to our industrial placements, our apprenticeship scheme provides a great opportunity for younger talent to join AstraZeneca. It leads to a permanent role and RSci award. Again, going back to the point on diversity, it’s fantastic to see that we have staff from the age of 18 upwards now - there is a lot of young, fresh and exciting talent in the company.”
Jack is passionate about inclusion and diversity. He said: “It’s important to understand how large companies have an impact in creating an inclusive and diverse space, particularly in the science industry, which is historically a challenge. It's something that I've definitely seen AstraZeneca put a lot of passion into improving across all of its functions.”
“AstraZeneca has employee resource groups for things like LGBTQIA+ representation, mental health support and ED&I. I'm involved in AZPride and its committee, which means I can be part of a wider conversation and work with students. It's something I really try to champion, and the scheme has helped us to do that.”
The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 is dedicated to the advancement of the chemical sciences. Our accreditation scheme gives chemists a fully supported route to industry recognition.
Reflections and looking forward
Jack said, “The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 scheme has helped me build confidence and expand my network, both internally at AstraZeneca and externally within the wider science community.”
Working towards the RSci award shows other people the integrity that I have towards the sciences; it shows I've developed multiple skills through autonomous working. It shows that I've got transferable skills within the company and also outside the company. Overall, it's very powerful and boosts my confidence. To have gone through this process and ended up on the committee is really rewarding too.
“What's really important to me is that this has allowed me to expand my network. I'm helping other people through the scheme and that's really rewarding. I've been able to benefit from both sides - from helping myself and helping others.”
On advice for others starting out on their accreditation journey, Jack said: “Have regular catch-ups with your mentor. It can be overwhelming to have a lot of attributes to complete, so turn to that person as your support, and they will be able to walk you through things. Most of the time you’ll realise you’re actually further ahead than you thought, or they’ll point out that you’re working to that level already.”
“I would recommend working with people you wouldn't normally work with and connecting with people who you might be able to form an ongoing relationship with them at a later date.
“My mentor was a team manager in a different department. And now I understand how the department works a little bit more just from off-topic discussions. It's a great opportunity to share your work with others and share within your team.”