Transformations in 2020

For quite apart from the pandemic, employees continue to deal with matters such as portfolio shift, price pressure and Roche's ten-year ambitions. This year was thus especially characterised by activities such as critically examining business processes, conducting comparisons with competitors and analysing cost structures.

In many areas, here on-site and also globally, the organisational structure became less hierarchical and more network-oriented. Employees virtually put their heads together to implement management’s “guard rails”. And it was not unusual for the scale of their findings to ultimately result in a reduction of the workforce.

Only people who are directly affected can judge what it means to realise, in the course of a transformation in which they are directly involved, that their own jobs will no longer exist in the future. In numerous cases the AVR offered its help. We are, after all, involved at an early stage in all transformations with possible effects on employees, whether directly through line management or through P&C Business Partners. The number of transformation discussions, consultation meetings and virtual town hall events involving the AVR in 2020 reached a new high.

When the objective is to strive for the best solutions for employees, quality always takes centre stage. The AVR needs a thorough, detailed understanding of an impending change before it can formulate its position and make suggestions.

The AVR has helped the company to move forward, but we hope to return to a situation of stability and calm. The AVR, nonetheless, wishes to thank each and every individual employee for their extraordinary achievements in the midst of such diverse change.

Written by Gernot Scharf, AVR Vice President