Our People

We are purpose driven: Our commitment to creating a Purposeful Workplace for our People to deliver breakthrough innovation for patients

Our entrepreneurial mindset combines collaborative and continuous learning approaches that enable our people to be empowered, get opportunities to learn and grow, feel recognized for their contributions, and perform to the best of their abilities and together as a team.

We value – and measure – equity, transparency, diversity, and leadership quality to foster trust and belonging.

To monitor equity, we perform annual equity checks during our promotion and end-of-year review processes. Additionally, we strive for a balanced pipeline of future employees to keep a sound talent mix across all levels of the organization.

As we actively seek to grow a diverse and inclusive workplace, we aim to define a roadmap in 2023 to deliver on our ambition to be a more a diverse, equitable and inclusive organization by 2028, and to embed these values in everything we do, including in our commitment to patients and strengthening our initiative aimed to ensure that our clinical trials are designed with diversity as a key factor.

We offer competitive and evolving remuneration packages to reward, recognize, develop, and retain our employees in a way that aligns with the company’s strategy and culture. Through a bi-yearly performance cycle, we aim to ensure an open and supportive professional environment. Performance bonuses and, for many employees, share-related opportunities, help drive sustainable performance and commitment, and reward employees for their contributions to our success. As part of the performance cycle, we also increased our investment in the development and engagement of our employees, by focusing on learning, coaching, and training opportunities. Additionally, we introduced “How Are You?” conversations to stimulate an open dialogue between manager and employee as well as departmental “Talent Talks” focused on development opportunities within and outside the different departments.

The benefits we offer vary from country to country, based on local customs and statutory conditions. We enriched our employee benefits at both the international and country level:

• Enhanced pay for performance linkages in our Year-End compensation review and related programs;
• Broad-based annual stock-based awards to drive further alignment between the company and all our employees; 
• Roll-out of further family leave policies;
• Improvements to various local benefits offerings ranging from enhanced time off to improved medical provision; and
• The implementation of mobility programs to encourage environmentally sound transportation behaviors.

Further to our Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) policy, we provide safe and healthy working conditions aiming to prevent any work-related personal harm. Our Health and Safety performance data for 2022 show that no fatalities because of work-related injuries or work-related ill health were reported, nor did we have any high consequence work related injuries.

2022 HIGHLIGHTS

For the fourth year in a row we are included in the 2023 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. The Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index is an objective measure that tracks gender equality across five pillars: leadership & talent pipeline, equal pay & gender pay parity, inclusive culture, anti-sexual harassment policies, and external brand. The list encompasses 484 companies headquartered in 45 countries and regions

• We hired and onboarded 179 new colleagues, including our new CEO, bringing the headcount to 1,338 people. Given the era of talent and the scarcity in the market for many profiles, we increased our focus on proactive talent sourcing, created an internship program to attract and grow young talents and launched a compelling employer brand campaign, with the tagline #IFoundMyPurpose, that consisted of podcasts and videos with employee testimonials
• A revised strategy was set-out soon after onboarding our new CEO, redesigning the company around our two strategic therapy areas, immunology and oncology, as core value drivers. As part of this strategic expansion in oncology, we led the due diligence, onboarding and integration of new colleagues at CellPoint and AboundBio, in the Netherlands and the U.S. respectively. Another part of the transformation was the reset towards a fit-for-purpose organization, and we announced a restructuring potentially affecting 200 positions. We organized face-to-face sessions on three locations to coach employees in dealing with change and insecurity. In total, over 150 employees attended these sessions and more than 85% of the participants rated them as ‘helpful’
• We celebrated the United Nations’ Health and Safety at Work Day on 28 April by organizing a wide range of well attended, site–specific awareness and training sessions related to first aid, the use of Automated External Defibrillators, ergonomic workplace design, fire and explosion prevention, etc.
• Belgian companies are required by law to conduct a wellbeing survey and we launched the RAPSi²⁰ survey at beginning of 2022 for our staff employed at our headquarters in Mechelen. 74% of our employees participated and overall wellbeing met or exceeded the Belgian benchmark in the vast majority (88%) of the questions included in the survey. In addition, we conducted a separate Employee Engagement Survey among our commercial affiliates for which we reported overall engagement rates above Global & Industry Benchmarks. The level of employee motivation, commitment to the company’s mission, and strong relationships between employee and line manager stood out
• A new cross-functional team of “Make It Happiness” ambassadors designed and executed a global program to promote wellbeing at work. Over 500 employees engaged in a physical team activity and received a GLPG branded activity wear in return. The “Make It Happiness” team also offered all employees access to the Headspace App, resulting in 27,000+ minutes of content usage and meditation within the first six months. Other initiatives were healthy breakfasts, inspirational keynotes and local as well as global office games to stimulate connections