Building a Strong Company Culture and Attracting Talent

Today, creating a sense of purpose is more critical than ever, and we provide employees the means to be successful and feel valued through empowerment, development, feedback, and our strong culture.

The HR Digest: What is the one lesson you learned in your journey as a CHRO?

Tim Richmond: One lesson I’ve learned, as simple as it sounds, would be to find a job at a great company. It’s important to bet on yourself and bet on your company. What this looks like may vary person to person, but if you believe in the company’s purpose, discover an inclusive culture aligned with your values, find leaders and teams that you can have open and honest conversations with, and are offered opportunities to keep learning and growing – you’ve hit the career jackpot.

I also believe that it’s important to take a long view and see a future for yourself wherever you work. Find a place where you can see yourself thriving and continuing to evolve – learn about the business, the patients, your cross-functional peers – and then grow your own capabilities.

If you are constantly learning, I’m a firm believer that the output is career growth and opportunities. If you find a company that is a great place to work, a lot of opportunity will follow, and I can honestly say that now I’m living proof of that lesson.

“AbbVie has been named to more than 40 Great Place to Work and Top Employer lists and is prominently recognized on “Best of” lists related to diversity, leadership, and engagement, as well as for corporate responsibility and business performance.” What according to you led to this achievement?

Our business is to improve lives – a connection our employees see, feel, and rally around. The combination of this purpose with our culture, strong financial performance, and innovative pipeline keeps employees engaged and inspired. But it doesn’t stop there. Our employees are also driven by their unwavering compassion for people, commitment to inclusion, and service to their communities.

Today, creating a sense of purpose is more critical than ever, and we provide employees the means to be successful and feel valued through empowerment, development, feedback, and our strong culture. We build the culture by hardwiring our expectations into every HR process, holding people accountable, listening, and building teams that exemplify our principles. Our work results in high engagement and strong leaders, but we aren’t complacent.

We monitor the external market carefully. We are humble. We listen. And we work to continue to earn the loyalty of employees at a time when – for reasons outside AbbVie – people are looking for change.​ Our desire to give back to our patients, customers and communities is a hallmark of our company culture and connects our employees to one another.

What challenges and obstacles do you see human resource management facing in the future?

Over the last few years we have become a larger, more complex organization, yet we continue to raise the bar on what good looks like.

In the spirit of continuous improvement, earlier this year I asked a forum of top HR executives: “What are the trends you see that have the potential to disrupt, and where must HR focus?”

Attracting talent in this extremely competitive and dynamic market was top-of-mind. While HR teams must remain excellent in talent acquisition, that isn’t enough. It is the responsibility of every leader and employee to bring in the best talent. We must also think differently— to be social architects that can build robust teams who are sustainable even when individual talent moves, to create and maintain an exceptional culture (the reason great talent stays), and to support flexibility without losing a culture of collaboration.

While we continue to set high expectations for our leaders to engage and grow their teams, we believe if we remain focused on amplifying our people, culture, and strategy, we will continue to weather the storm and come out as an even stronger organization. 

What was the most challenging yet rewarding decision you had to take in your career?

Some of my most rewarding experiences happened when I found myself out of my comfort zone. Early in my career, I was offered an international opportunity in Dubai. There, I was challenged to understand a new country, culture, and way of working. Through that experience, I gained better insights to lead HR professionals, across the globe today. I discovered a resiliency inside myself that I didn’t know existed and learned to embrace change head-on by adapting to learn, reflect, discover, and build momentum to do great things.

Therefore, I always encourage others to remain open to new growth opportunities both personally and professionally. I strongly believe in fostering a mindset of curiosity to broaden perspective. To achieve high performance, it is important to master a range of skills and apply them in an increasingly complex and quickly changing global work environment. These experiences are ones that stay with you for the rest of your life and career, and ultimately shape you into the type of leader and person you want to be. I encourage anyone considering an international opportunity to take the leap, not just for your professional growth, but for your personal growth, too.

What common benefits and perks mistakes do you see organizations making?

There is an ongoing cycle of new offerings and hot trends entering the marketplace that can overwhelm and take away from the end goal: providing employees the best support to meet their needs, aligned to culture.

My advice is for organizations to look at a combination of benefits, compensation, and well-being to provide a suite of offerings for employees across life and career stages. By truly listening to employees, monitoring workforce trends, and benchmarking against peer companies to remain competitive, we can provide the best options to support work-life well-being. AbbVie offers a range of benefits for employees at every step of their well-being journey. We offer a variety of local and global programs, resources, and experiences to help employees be their best self at work and at home.

We’ve listened to our employees and are always asking for feedback. For example, we expanded our well-being offerings over the past few years to include increased parental and caregiver leave and enhanced mental health support. The labor market remains extremely dynamic, so we consistently evaluate and evolve our offerings and initiatives, and, as a result, we continue to retain our fair share of the best talent.

Tim Richmond,

Chief Human Resources Officer, AbbVie

Tim Richmond is the Chief Human Resources Officer at AbbVie. He is responsible for leading the global HR organization and empowering employees to achieve their career goals. Since AbbVie’s inception in 2013, Tim has focused on creating a dynamic culture, talent development, and enterprise capabilities to drive growth. He serves on several boards and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources.

Photo: AbbVie  

This profile was published in the January 2023 issue of The HR Digest.

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