How Pfizer is fostering meaningful growth for every colleague, everywhere

Redefining Career Growth at Pfizer

At Pfizer, we’re transforming and redefining ‘growth’ for our colleagues. To live and deliver on our purpose: breakthroughs that change patients’ lives, we need to continually grow ourselves and those around us. Doing this – while thinking big and pursuing bold goals – will help us to bring medicines and vaccines forward that can radically alter the course of a disease. We now see growth as a part of our DNA: We grow every day. In practice, this means promoting equitable growth opportunities for all our colleagues. At Pfizer, growth is a collection of diverse experiences and a belief that everyone can work, lead, grow themselves, and grow others. Our Growth and Talent Strategy fuels colleague growth, promotes internal movement, and cultivates a culture of collective talent ownership.

Creating a strong pool of well-rounded leaders is more than just words on paper. We’re committed to providing people with the opportunities they need to grow – in many cases, that means fostering non-linear growth.

Traditional career paths have usually involved taking steps up the ladder before one can achieve their 'dream' role. At Pfizer, we encourage our colleagues to seek out new experiences. We know different experiences in a role, function, or across multiple functions produce professionals with unique expertise and broader perspectives.

Our philosophy promotes incremental growth in a role as well as movement across horizontal, diagonal or vertical paths. We don’t define the path our colleagues take, either. Every person has the opportunity to tailor their growth around what they want from their career, to achieve their potential and help us deliver on our purpose.

Growth isn’t limited to a set number of linear paths, or a certain number of people. At Pfizer, growth is open to everyone, at every stage of their career, from the moment they join.

Setting a common language for growth

To achieve ‘zig-zag’ or non-linear growth for Pfizer colleagues, we’ve set out a common language of growth across functions, markets, and regions. We hope this enables more meaningful growth conversations between colleagues and their managers.

As a Pfizer colleague, you may focus on being the best in your current role (‘Grow in Role’) and grow your knowledge and develop a stronger foundation in a specific area. You might use your expertise on a new project or in a new role to develop a broader perspective of your function or discipline (‘Next Experience’). You may take a step up to a totally different part of the business to expand your view of Pfizer (‘Cross-Functional’), or to a position of greater responsibility and challenge (‘Next Level’). How you grow is determined by you.

How we grow ourselves

Having that opportunity and spotting the chances you need to build that diverse experience you want are two separate things. So, we encourage colleagues to have regular growth conversations with their manager, using these definitions as a starting point. These conversations will support colleagues’ growth, connect them with our business strategy and inspire operational growth and make Pfizer an amazing place to work and grow.

Deciding on how you want to achieve growth can be personal, but if you have the drive and desire, you will find yourself supported by your manager and enabled by the organization.

We encourage Pfizer colleagues to have the courage to think big and speak up, and feel safe in knowing that exploring new, diverse opportunities is the way to live your dream career.

It’s your journey – so live it.