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Creating an inclusive community for women supports inclusion for all. banner
“Find a place that you love working at, which respects, supports and helps you with your ambitions and moving towards your dream job.” 
   
- Ana Fiadeiro, Sr. Marketing Manager, Field And Safety Instruments, Portugal, Thermo Fisher Scientific
 
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Thermo Fisher Scientific is proud to actively champion women in the workforce and strives to create an inclusive climate on a daily basis. And we believe the key to creating an inclusive workplace means extending that environment, and the opportunities within that environment, to all of our colleagues, not just a subset. In doing so, we build a stronger culture that is inclusive to all our 75,000 global colleagues. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, we believe it’s even more critical to focus on building a psychologically safe work environment in which all colleagues can have the opportunity to develop.


At Thermo Fisher Scientific, inclusion is about providing a sense of belonging, where all colleagues (and their diverse backgrounds and experiences) feel comfortable in being one’s whole, authentic self at work. To make a tangible impact, creating an inclusive work environment starts with cultivating trust among peers and leadership as well as providing opportunities for colleagues to be heard. Business &  Employee Resource Groups (B/ERG) are one great example of how we do this at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Our Women’s ERG is specifically focused on fostering the advancement of women and building a corporate culture in which women colleagues are recruited, valued, developed, retained, and promoted globally throughout the company.  


As the world leader in serving science and with over $1B invested in R&D annually, fostering inclusion for all colleagues, in particular women, in R&D and Information Technology is also a high priority. We recently implemented two platforms to encourage idea and innovation sharing: Intensifying Innovation (I^2) and the Collaborative Research Contract Grant Program (CRC).  These corporate-wide initiatives encourage colleagues to share courageous, high-impact, high-reward R&D projects that expand beyond the artificial barriers of departments and product lines.  Selected grant recipients are afforded the time, funding and resources to pursue their ideas.


Leveraging the CRC, a cross-functional team of Thermo Fisher Scientific colleagues in Cell Biology and Digital Science are currently pursuing their idea of using artificial intelligence to predict the quality of stem cells.


A grassroots initiative called Data Science Innovation Lab (DSIL) was recently launched, as part of an employee-driven Business Resource Group started by Data Scientist, Allison Wu. The DSIL accelerates business impact by developing a centralized, global community centered around the field and application of Data Science, which enables knowledge exchange, skills enhancements, innovative collaboration and talent development across diverse functions and perspectives, ultimately contributing to the success of Thermo Fisher. 


Providing colleagues with forums to voice ideas is one of many components to creating an inclusive work environment.  Another is putting initiatives in place that encourage professional development.  Thermo Fisher hosts an R&D Leadership Academy focused on developing collaboration, business and financial acumen and communication skills required of next-generation R&D leaders.  Together with the Leadership Academy, and various leadership development programs for recent graduates (IT, Finance, Operations, Procurement, Sales, and General Management Graduate / Leadership Development Programs), Thermo Fisher provides colleagues with various career tracks that encourage transferable skills across functions.  


In addition to business and employee resource groups, platforms to voice ideas and professional development programs, generating awareness of diverse career paths and accomplishments of our women colleagues strengthens inclusion within our organization as well as externally in our communities. In 2019, the  Championing Women in Science issue of Life in the Lab magazine featured women colleagues, all with scientific backgrounds, who are pursuing 12 different careers, including Bioinformatics, Marketing Strategy, Product Management and Executive Leadership.  Building awareness of the various career tracks available exemplifies just how versatile a career can be, specifically for those with scientific backgrounds. 


As we celebrate the contributions of women in our society, consider that the needs of women are also often the needs of other colleagues.  By elevating the voices of all and creating channels for those voices to be heard, we create a more inclusive culture and successful organization.

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