AbbVie wins a ‘ great place to work’ award

ABBVIE, the global biopharmaceutical company which has two sites in Sligo at Ballytivnan and on the Manorhamilton Road, has been listed among the Top 20 Best Large Workplaces in Ireland for the third successive year. The accolade was presented at the Great Place to Work Awards in Dublin recently.

AbbVie was listed as the 3rd Best Large Workplace in Ireland and the winner of the Employee Development award. The research- based biopharmaceutical company’s performance improved by nine places and was also singled out by the Great Place to Work Institute for its efforts promote employee development through a number of innovative programmes that enable employees to own their own career, their development and “personal brand.”

Caroline McClafferty, AbbVie HR Director said: “It is a fantastic achievement to be ranked 3rd in the top 23 large company on our third year of entry and to receive special recognition award for employee development. This award has externally validated AbbVie’s focus on employee development with the introduction of our unique company talent philosophy. It’s a process that ensures transparent feedback on performance, identifies employee development and growth opportunities, all of which is directly linked to our AbbVie culture.”

AbbVie employs more than 500 people at five manufacturing and commercial sites across Ireland. Colleagues located at the company’s pharmaceutical plants in Sligo entered the competition in a combined entry with AbbVie’s Cork and Dublin employees.

Commenting on the importance of employee development to attract and retain talent Marc O’Donoghue, Site Director, AbbVie Manorhamilton Road, Sligo said:

“At AbbVie we have focused not only on attracting the best talent but also in continually developing the talent we have to build a strong organisation with technical strength and leadership capabilities. We have focused on building development programmes in our laboratory, operations and engineering teams, allowing individuals the opportunity to continually grow and build their career in a direction that benefits them.”

Joe Kumor, Site Director, AbbVie Ballytivnan, said a key objective for AbbVie Ballytivnan was to put in place training and learning structures that would enable more effective professional development. “We realised that our employees were keen to explore different ways to upskill in a manner that would have practical impact on their day- to- day roles, so we created the environment and associated arrangements.”

The Great Place to Work Institute assesses the policies and practices in place in organisations under nine key areas. AbbVie scored exceptionally highly across all areas at its sites in Dublin,