One Unified Team, One Promise to Our Patients

Written by: Yvette Saunders, Executive Director Human Resources at CSL

I have been with CSL for 11 years now, which feels remarkable to me because the time has flown by. I have been in seven different roles in that time – some lateral moves and some promotions –- and you could certainly say I’m a testament to what happens when you take opportunities as they come up. CSL is a land of opportunity, and I am always learning along the way.

Currently I am Executive Director - HR Business Partner (HRBP) for our global enabling functions teams. I oversee a team of strategic HRBPs who support areas such as Finance, IT, Legal (which includes Communications and Risk), HR, Business Strategy and Development, supporting many aspects of people and culture.

Whether you work for CSL Vifor, CSL Seqirus or CSL Behring, you are a part of the CSL family. Each business has a different identity in the market, but we all unite under CSL’s promise to our patients: to deliver therapeutic treatments that improve lives and protect public health.

The core values that link us all

CSL has five core values: patient focus, innovation, integrity, collaboration, and superior performance. As the business has grown over the years, these values have stayed consistent across every part of the company.

While each unit may have different patients depending on the therapeutic areas each business supports, we are all unified under that patient focus value. It must be said, though, that these businesses have such proud histories of their own, so we are careful to uphold their own legacies as we incorporate them into ours.

Focusing on individual growth and development

CSL has always lived by its ‘promise to our patients’, but we are very focused on ‘promising futures’ for our employees, too. There has always been ample support for individual growth and now, with our global organisation having expanded tenfold in recent years, the opportunities to develop are even broader. For those who wish to explore new skill sets and experiences, there are so many areas to choose from, all around the world.

We also believe that giving our team members personalised development plans is really important. Supporting career development is an important role of a leader – authentic interactions, values led, growth and progression is something we want all CSL employees to experience with us.

Unity in action

What really stands out to me when I reflect on CSL’s culture is how our teams have come together over the past couple of years to manage the pandemic. We had teams who were collaborating with University of Queensland and ultimately AstraZeneca to manufacture a vaccine in Australia. This occurred while still manufacturing our flu vaccine and plasma products. The number of people involved in making that happen was quite incredible. The other part was ensuring that our teams were still able to operate through a very lengthy lockdown. Those who were working from home managed to continue to work effectively and productively despite all the disruption to our processes.

This is an absolutely shining example of the teamwork and collaboration at CSL, and that mindset you can see across the board no matter which business you work in. Each and every person has been dedicated to making sure that we were able to keep on achieving our promise to our patients.