Irvine-based drug maker Allergan Inc. looks to build a workplace environment where it is “serving our employees as our customers,” according to a company official.
“We’re working quite diligently around listening to them about the things we can, in fact, do better,” said Scott Sherman, executive vice president of human resources for the Botox maker.
Allergan, which employs 3,693 workers in Orange County, ranked No. 22 in the large-companies category on the Business Journal’s third annual Best Places to Work list this week.
Last year, Allergan ranked No. 21 in the category.
The list was compiled for the Business Journal by Harrisburg, Pa.-based Best Companies Group, an independent workplace researcher that managed the registration process (see Methodology, page 26).
Communication Key
For Allergan, communication was a key to making the list.
Multiple roundtable discussions are held monthly with employees, who often tell their bosses that maintaining a focus on patients, customers and execution is important, according to Sherman.
Other suggestions have to do with employees themselves. A new career development framework grew out of suggestions at the discussions. To help that along, Allergan recently instituted a program with workshops and classes called Harvard ManageMentor, which was developed at Harvard University.
Harvard ManageMentor’s classes and workshops are offered in eight languages. It’s become part of all of Allergan’s global locations.
“The thing we have to do very well is listen to the employee,” Sherman said. “It’s that engagement and commitment that our employees demonstrate every day that fuels our success.”
Lorens Slokovic, Allergan’s director of packaging design and development, said that another aspect of what makes Allergan a good place to work is its minimal bureaucracy.
“What I’ve found in my experience has been that for us, in order to make a difference, whether it was in the site or at corporate, we’ve always been allowed to have the latitude to make our own decisions in order to get to the ultimate goal,” said Slokovic, who has been with Allergan for nine years and started out as a director of engineering at one of its plants.
“It’s not a bureaucratic company; it’s not multiple layers of management,” he said.
Allergan also gives financial rewards.
The company has a management bonus program designed to reward eligible management-level employees based on providing the company’s stockholders with increased value for their investment based on meeting financial goals and individual performance incentives.
There’s also a bonus plan for non-management employees.
“Everybody at Allergan has some incentive that is a function of either their individual performance or the corporation’s performance,” Sherman said.
On benefits, the drug maker has a 401k plan as well as a retirement savings account. Allergan also has a “large number of choices” for employees’ medical coverage, sick leave, dental and vision benefits. It also offers domestic-partner benefits.
The drug maker recently added benefits such as wellness, including some upcoming wellness fairs and testing.
Allergan is doing more around wellness “as we continue to try to be an employer that helps folks really take care of body, mind and spirit,” Sherman said.
Some of Allergan’s benefits have paid off for Slokovic, who has three teenagers.
“When you have three kids, you’re going to use every facet of the benefit program,” Slokovic said.
In particular, Slokovic said he was pleased that Allergan initiated a health savings account that the company helps contribute to and does not get cut off at the end of the year.
He said having the health savings account has helped him tackle “some big out-of-pocket expenses” for his children’s healthcare.
Slokovic’s teenagers are varsity high school athletes, “and they are always either at the chiropractor … there’s always something going on.”
Green Space
Allergan’s Dupont Drive campus, which has a lot of green space, features baseball and soccer fields, as well as an onsite tennis court. Competitive soccer and basketball leagues are available to workers.
The campus also has an on-site fitness center with equipment, classes and showers.
Having those activities creates employees who are “more well and engaged at work,” Sherman said.
Allergan has “a little bit” of facilitated, off-site team-building programs, Sherman said.
Most of those are done in the company’s sales and commercial organizations worldwide.
“We’re trying to do other things to build a ‘one-Allergan’ team,” he said.
