In the Life science Industry, there are two concurrent, fast-growing talent development and retention problems for large companies.

 

PROBLEM 1: GOING BEYOND THE OLD SET OF EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
While employee benefits vary by company, many employers may offer some form of the following annual benefits: health insurance, 401k / pension plan, two to four weeks vacation, transportation benefits, employee discounts.
There's nothing inherently wrong with these types of benefits, but they hardly answer to the current needs of high caliber employees (Zack Friedman 2017).

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PROBLEM 2: IDENTIFYING CREDIBLE LEARNING PROCESSES
“Many companies are seeking customized learning interventions to develop specific skill sets, insights, and competencies critical to driving the capabilities of their businesses where learning is seamlessly integrated with performing in the business.” (Lubeck et al. 2015)
These “specific skill sets” are often inseparable from the specific industry where the individual operates or intends to operate: the industry of life science.
While talent management officers and HR Officers understand the value of non-industry-specific education, business executives such as GMs, and divisional and regional presidents tend to under evaluate learning experiences that are not tied to everyday business reality.
Because of the above, in the Global Life Science Industry (GLSI), several mid-level managers are not exposed to training and learning experiences that have the true potential to change their career, decision making and to significantly increase their contribution to their respective organizations.
There is a significant trend for managers and executives leaving the corporate world for start-up organizations and one of the reasons is the search for higher exposure to cross-disciplinary learning.

 

CURRENT EXECUTIVE EDUCATION OFFERING IN LIFE SCIENCES
Most of the available training programs suffer from the same common issues: they are theoretical and often lack elements of experiential learning (Lubeck et al. 2015).
They are not interdisciplinary, but they reflect the typical functional silos of corporate organizations. They are neither designed nor thought explicitly for Life Science but general applications. Too often they are neither created nor delivered by actual executives who have gained their medals on the battlefields.
Consequences of the above:
Those  learning experiences won’t touch the individual's daily ability to make a difference for participating individuals.
They often remain a sterile academic exercise with limited personal interest and involvement of participants.