Novartis now offers many associates the choice to decide how, where and when they work* to create the greatest impact for their role while taking personal responsibility to inform managers and align with teammates for effective collaboration, based on the nature of their work.  

At Novartis, our people are our most valuable resource. We want everyone to feel able to be their best selves at work and at home, and we are committed to supporting and enabling them to be inspired, curious and unbossed. The global pandemic has accelerated our organizational need to explore new working models and our associates have expressed a strong desire for more flexibility in how, where and when they work. We believe we can create a future working model that optimizes both personal and business performance. Our journey toward that model is what we call Choice with Responsibility.

We have a great diversity of roles across our organization, and they won’t all allow for the same degree of flexibility, but we want to explore how we can offer maximum choice for everyone. This will be a multi-year journey and we have a lot to learn and experiment with but we will be starting our journey with the following steps:

• We have introduced an updated flexibility policy that applies to all office-based associates, effective July 15, 2020. The policy shifts responsibility from manager-approved to manager-informed, empowering associates to choose how, where and when they work within their country of employment*.
• We will be offering in-country specific support to help all associates working remotely and do so in a healthy and comfortable environment.
• We will continue to listen and learn from our people and run a global pulse check-in to understand how our new approach is working and what matters most to our associates, now and in the future.
• We will also be expanding our mental health resources, with the aim of raising awareness, creating understanding and supporting associates and encouraging good mental health practices.

This is just the start and we intend to create sustainable solutions to support and empower associates now and into the future. We will run experiments to ensure that our long-term proposals are practical, impactful and applicable to the widest possible spectrum of associates. The insights we take from these experiments and the proposals they shape will be the foundation on which our future working model is built.

We believe that Choice with Responsibility will help many of our associates strengthen their work life integration, while supporting and furthering our culture journey and our business. We are proud to take the next step in pioneering the workplace of the future, and in creating an environment that works for us all.

* Corporate tax, individual tax and social security regulations require special attention if the work is performed from outside the country/state in which the employer is located. Consequently, Choice with Responsibility is applicable in-country and in-state/ local area only, until further guidance can be provided on cross-border application.