Mentorship is key, says Lilly exec
Eli Lilly’s graduate programme offers many benefits, notably the mentorship and targeted support focused on personal development.
Where to take a job is a question that occupies every student at some time.
Whether a company embraces diversity and sustainability are factors that may be considered; as are the quality of experience likely to be gained there and the prospects for career development. Beyond that, lies the core question as to whether it’s a great place to work.
To establish that fact, an enquiry into the firm’s staff turnover will reveal all you need to know. In the case of Eli Lilly, Kinsale, it’s less than two percent. Now, that’s a statistic that speaks volumes about it being somewhere that workers like to work.
“At Lilly, we are really passionate about our people,” says Stephen Flanagan, AssociateVP – Engineering. "People tend to stay working with us. That’s because of the culture here and because of the opportunities and the career development that we offer people."
Of Eli Lilly’s engineering graduate programme, he says: “This is something we developed here in Kinsale over the past decade, in partnership with the UK based iChemE. As part of our outreach programme, we pay the iChemE membership for students while they are in college.
“Once graduates join, they go into a three year programme here with us. They are mentored by senior engineers and given experiences designed to get them to chartership. iChemE accredits that three year graduate programme so that it is a route to chartership. This is of course a selling point for us when we are hiring students, as this accelerated route to partnership is of great benefit to them, once they get into industry.”
It is of great benefit to Eli Lilly as well: “We get to provide those people with targeted mentorship and development opportunities from the moment they walk straight through the door. This is far better for them than just going into a job elsewhere, where it would be pot luck as to how well they do over the next couple of years.”
Eli Lilly’s engagement with colleges is well known: “We guest lecture and we sponsor PhDs and awards and prizes,” says Flanagan. “We also provide undergraduate student placements, where students come on site and spend maybe six or nine months here — or 15 in the case of Queen’s, Belfast. Here they get hands on, doing real industrial work, while continuing on with their college courses.”
Again, this arrangement works well for everyone: “It does,” says Flanagan. “Individuals get the benefit of being well paid while gaining real industrial experience with us. They return to college with good experience. Then they get into their final year where they carry out design projects before looking for long-term employment.
“We benefit by getting additional capacity from those individuals. We also get a good look at the next wave of talent, which is something that informs our hiring for future years.”
Planning and timing play key roles in Eli Lilly’s recruitment process. “We are hiring for permanent roles in engineering and science as the graduates are finishing their placement in the summer of their second last year of college,” says Flanagan.
“They can go back to college for their final year with a permanent job already in their pocket. Then, when they go to college the following year, they walk straight into the job, with the best part of a year’s experience of working here with us and maybe project experience as well, as part of our graduate placement programme.
“Because students are getting a year plus of experience with us, before they even finish their course, we are stealing a march on our post graduate hiring.”
Lilly’s graduate programme offers many benefits: The mentorship, the support to get to chartership and the mentorship and the targeted focus on development. These are areas from which many people have gained massively, as has Eli Lilly as well.
Students who join the company under the engineering graduate programme tend to fare very well from that, as Flanagan explains: “We hire graduates as full time employees. The graduate programme is targeted towards their personal development. Elsewhere, you might have a graduate working for a couple of years in industry, with no guarantee of a permanent job at the end of that. Here at Lilly, you are a permanent employee from the get go.”
Beyond engineering, all of Lilly’s other functions — including science, QA, IT and tech services — have their own direct engagements with the colleges and their own versions of undergraduate placements and postgraduate roles.
“Our primary intake from the point of view of new employees is graduate hiring,” says Flanagan. “One of the benefits that we sell at a global level, is the clusters of colleges that are in Ireland, the quality coming out of them and the relationships we have with them.”
Sharing that Eli Lilly has ambassadors ‘from every function, at every college, Flanagan says he has an engineering ambassador at numerous, including UCC, MTU, UL, Queen’s and Trinity. He explains that the ambassadors’ role is to maintain a close relationship with the colleges and to be familiar with their courses. Then, when tweaks can be made to those courses, so as to make the content more relevant to industry, the ambassadors’ role is to inform the colleges.
Besides engineering, Eli Lilly sources new talent from several disciplines, including science, IT, business, finance, procurement, supply chain and HR. “We also have apprentices in the crafts space,” says Flanagan. “In our operational areas, where possible we tend to hire locals.
“Only about 30 per cent of our operations team are third level educated,” he says. “The majority have the Leaving Certificate. We also have a whole swathe of individuals working here in operations, who have had other careers, so they are ex-army, ex-navy, carpenters and plumbers.”
Given the aforementioned low turnover rate of staff at Eli Lilly, Kinsale, it’s perfectly clear that the organisation invests in its people and greatly values them as well. “People are our biggest asset here in Kinsale,” says Flanagan. “We are recognised for that within the company globally.” Of the new site in Limerick, he says: “Part of the reason why Ireland in general and Limerick in particular was chosen for that location of that site, is because of the talent pool we have here. This has been shown to be the case over the forty years Lilly has been in Kinsale.”
It’s telling of the personal touch the organisation takes with looking after its people, when Flanagan mentions how their people are not only provided with development opportunities but ‘minded’ as well.
“Where we are now is the brand new employee facility that we built through Covid. It has a gymnasium, a wellness centre and a cafeteria. This was the first time Lilly built something for its people that was not for operational or manufacturing purposes. The sole purpose of this build was simply to provide a better working environment for our people.
“Between all that is provided for employees in terms of health and wellness, education, continuous education and then their own personal development and career development, we try to make every aspect of life better for them.”
How many are working in Kinsale? “We’ve just shy of 1,300 staff working at Lilly, Kinsale.
Confirming that Eli Lilly provides on the job training all the time, along with a detailed extra-curricular learning programme, Flanagan says: “For example, I moved several times as part of my career journey. I am an engineer by background. I’ve worked in our IT organisation, I’ve worked in our automation organisation. I went back to school and did a bio pharma Masters that Lilly funded.”
Lilly also has an education assistance programme, so if people want to reimagine themselves, develop their career, go in a different direction, or supplement the qualifications they already have, they can seek to do that."
In response, says Flanagan, the company will fund all or part of that, depending on its relevance to their career path and where they are going.
“Here in Lilly Kinsale, we have biotechnology, small molecule chemistry and peptides continuous manufacturing, all on one campus. This is fairly unique for our industry.
We facilitate people to move around between those different platforms, so they can learn new things and broaden their skillset. After that, we talk with them about their career options, whether that may be technical or, as I chose, managerial. “Folks have the ability to do both here,” says Flanagan. “We encourage both and develop both.
“Both routes have equal opportunities around continuing to progress within the company. Both routes are equally supported from a development perspective as well. Again, this is something Lilly does really really well: combining the needs and desires of the individual with what is needed by the business.”
