STADA: We want a vendor that ‘makes it seamless for people to participate in employee surveys’

As employee wellbeing is climbing up the priority list for businesses, more measures are being taken to improve employee experience and satisfaction – something that the German healthcare and pharmaceutical company STADA knows all too well.

With a workforce of 14,000 employees in over 50 countries, STADA has established itself as a giant in the industry, boasting an impressive FY2022 revenue was €3.79bn.

Over the course of its 125-year history, the company has grasped the value of listening, learning, and adapting to the needs of its employees.

Matthias Schilling, Manager of Global People Analytics at STADA, believes that a healthy working environment that promotes employee wellbeing is key for both personal and organizational growth – stating that healthy employees are also happier and show a stronger commitment to STADA and their work.

In an exclusive interview with UNLEASH, Schilling explains why employee wellbeing is paramount for STADA, as well as how they business has improved employee experience across the globe.

How STADA prioritizes employee’s mental health and wellbeing

Employees facing mental health or wellbeing challenges at work are four times more likes to leave the business and three times more likely to experience low job satisfaction, according to a report from McKinsey.

That’s why, physical and mental health is a top priority for STADA, so much so, that the business launches yearly initiatives through the #CaringForYou campaign – including the Virgin Pulse Step counting team challenge and the 30 Days Health Challenge.

Employees also have access to self-care courses and free counseling sessions, as part of its #CaringForYou Mental Health and Wellbeing program.

Additionally, STADA raises organizational awareness around mental and physical health by providing leadership training and a global communication campaign to create an environment in which each employee can grow.

Following the purpose: “Caring for People’s Health as a Trusted Partner”, STADA demonstrates the company’s belief in two fundamental aspects when it comes to success: highly engaged teams and a growth culture.

“Good health starts with the individual and must be part of a daily routine to develop healthy habits in the long term,” Schilling says. “Being the best team in the industry is only possible if employees, their inclusion, and their continued development are STADA’s number one consideration.”

DEIB also feeds into STADA’s focus to promote employee experiences, as diversity and uniqueness form the cornerstone of the company’s success. In fact, more than 53% of the management positions at STADA are held by women, and millennials make up a little more than 51% of all employees.

All employees are also encouraged to proactively contribute their unique skills and perspectives and nurture creativity and innovation, which are key to STADA’s growth culture.

For these reasons, STADA has top three HR priorities.

Firstly, to promote a deeply engaged workforce. STADA lives by four values: integrity, entrepreneurship, agility and One STADA – all of which are prioritized daily.

An integral part of this is listening to what employees want – for example, through global surveys – while also ensuring feedback is actioned to create a positive working culture.

The second key point is becoming a talent magnet by creating a best-in-class candidate experience, both by attracting talent from inside the pharma industry, as well as building knowledge and expertise by attracting those from other industries.

Last, but not least, STADA emphasizes a deep engagement in the topic of environmental, social and governance (ESG), by holding themselves accountable for driving sustainable change across every area of the business. To achieve this, STADA sets its own targets and ensures compliance with regulatory requirements.

Boosting employee experience with Qualtrics

Back in 2021, STADA was searching for a tool that maintained a high level of employee engagement.

The business wanted to conduct regular customer surveys to gain a deeper understanding of what employees want, while helping individuals gain clarity on where they stand within their team.

Que: Qualtrics. The experience management company helped STADA find a product that ticked the boxes of all four of their key requirements:

• Cover the whole employee lifecycle.
• Allow employees to benefit from STADA’s IT transformation, which is easy to connect to the company’s already-in-place people platform SAP SuccessFactors.
• Be easy to use and maintain.
• Gives out-of-the-box visualizations and charts by providing analytical tools for deeper analysis.

“We are currently using Qualtrics for our people surveys that we conduct twice per year,” Schilling explains.

“We use onboarding and offboarding surveys to collect feedback from our employees who join but also leave the STADA group. We have implemented spot-checks to precisely target specific employee groups and conduct 360-degree feedback with our executive employees.

“We’re very happy with the way Qualtrics makes it seamless for people to participate. The proof of success is that we’re seeing production workers take part in surveys, not just office staff.”

From the survey, STADA has received consistent results with an average participation rate above 80%, showing that using Qualtrics is providing the right tools to improve the employee experience.

Additionally, to help connect and support the employees it serves across 57 countries, STADA has implements easy-to-use QR codes for its production workers – a proven game changer for the company. As well as providing global feedback, the QR codes provide a simple way for employees to input their valuable feedback into the company surveys.

Promoting transparency among employees

In a recent global pulse survey of STADA’s 14,000-strong workforce, the business saw a record 88% response rate, with an overall engagement rate of 8.1 out of 10.

8.7 out of ten employees rated that they were confident the business would reach its goals – something that STADA takes great pride in.

“As we receive around 30,000 comments on each survey, we initiated focus groups to further expand on creating insights but also creating actions out of the feedback we receive from our workforce,” Schilling says.

Matthias Schilling, Manager of Global People Analytics at STADA

“Our focus groups comprise of employees from various STADA functions, and they discuss topics from enhancing the integration of new colleagues joining STADA, the communication from and to the management, to the need for more variety when it comes to the menu in our canteen.

“We also share feedback with employees via different channels – for example, our STADA Intranet, Town Halls, and our CEO Peter Goldschmidt informs everybody in the company about the results via email.

“This just reflects STADA’s very open culture of sharing our survey results, to ensure we’re doing all we can for our employees.”