1. Genzyme’s High-Trust Culture Wins €464m
Inward Investment in Four Years
Executive Summary
The Great Place to Work Institute created a structured
tailored programme for cultural change in Genzyme that
built significant growth in trust and engagement levels,
delivering significant inward investment for the site. A
focused programme which supported leaders to deliver
high trust within their teams, along with the entire
business taking ownership for making improvements,
were some of the critical success factors.
About Genzyme
Genzyme, a Sanofi company, has pioneered the
development and delivery of transformative
therapies for patients affected by rare and
debilitating diseases for over 30 years. Genzyme
Waterford is a state-of-the-art facility serving
patients across more than 70 countries and
employing more than 550 personnel.
About Great Place to Work
The Great Place to Work Institute helps the world’s
leading organisations build high trust cultures. Each
year, Great Place to Work partners with more than
6,000 organisations with some 10 million
employees worldwide to conduct the largest annual
set of workplace culture studies in the world.
€464m
inward investment
20% to 0%
low-trust leaders
52% to 87%
trust/engagement levels
“Building a high trust environment has been a key factor in
unlocking our high performance levels”
Richard Bierney
Site Head

2. Growth Pains Challenge Genzyme Waterford’s Trust Culture
From its inception in 2001, leadership at the Waterford campus focused on creating an inclusive culture based on trust.
Genzyme measured levels of trust regularly using an internal survey and by 2005 the site employed 150 personnel
operating in a high trust environment. Between 2005 and 2009 the success of the Waterford operation attracted
significant inward investment, employee numbers more than doubled in four years, and the product range expanded
significantly.
However, the growth in employee numbers combined with the
growing complexity of the work caused the culture of trust to come
under pressure. Relationships began to suffer and there was a sense
that listening and collaboration with employees had deteriorated. The
previously proactive approach taken to managing its culture was
replaced with reactive responses to issues as they arose. The
developing culture reflected strong silos and a lack of alignment across
functions. A pulse survey was carried out with employees in 2009
which showed overall trust levels had dropped to 52% from 80% four
years earlier.
Leadership Recognises Trust-Based Culture is Fundamental to Executing its
Strategy for Growth
“Let’s build our trust levels...
that will be the key to our
success. If we build the trust
and bring the people along,
they will deliver for us and they
will deliver our ambitious
growth plans.”
Richard Bierney
Site Head
The business needed to adopt a more strategic approach to their culture in order
to deliver on current business objectives and future strategy goals. All staff
attended an offsite to discuss the future ambition for the business in Waterford
and to create a compelling vision.
Part of this vision was to become a lean organisation. Lean as a management
system provides visibility and transparency into how work is conducted, and
where the bottlenecks are. In order to respond to these bottlenecks and put
improvements in place, there needs to be an environment of trust. Often
organisations adopt lean when the business is on a downward trajectory. In
Genzyme’s case, the decision was taken by staff to implement lean while the
business was in a growth environment.
However, lean can have negative connotations and may be seen as a threat to people’s position and status. In order for
lean to be successful, people needed to be committed to the change. The leadership team recognised that the change
could only be successful if levels of trust were restored at the site. They also required line of sight into the organisation to
see if their people trusted them to bring them on this journey.
Genzyme Waterford Sets Sights on Renewing its High-Trust Culture
Site leadership engaged the Great Place to Work Institute to assist it with
evaluating the existing culture, designing a change programme, and supporting
its implementation.
At the core of the Great Place to Work Institute is the capability to build and
sustain high-trust cultures. Leveraging its engagement with over 6,000
organisations worldwide, they bring a proven model of the journey from low to
high trust culture, and the creation of great workplaces.
In the Genzyme case, they developed a programme of research, stakeholder
engagement, and capacity building built around the Great Place to Work model.
“The methodology and the
overall Great Place to Work
concept became fundamental
to our ability to deliver a
change agenda and to allow
us to facilitate on our growth
agenda for the site.”
Richard Bierney
Site Head
0
50
100
2005 2007 2009
Trust Level

3. Great Place to Work Creates a Structured, Tailored Programme for Change
1. Critical Building Blocks Lay a Solid Foundation
“I would like to think that I am
reliable and approachable and
that leaders feel confident to use
me as a support and a sounding
board for developing trust within
their team”
Gemma Kennedy
High Trust Lead
Senior Leadership Get Aligned
An alignment workshop was held with the leadership team to agree the
approach to the programme and identify the key players for the project. All of
the leadership team were trained in the Great Place to Work tools and
methodology.
A Compelling Vision is Crafted
Every change programme needs a compelling story to position the approach.
Genzyme committed to creating a high trust workplace to support their growth
strategy. It was important that nobody in the business felt that the site was
looking to build a ‘nice’ place to work but that it was about the creation of a
culture that was all about high performance.
Genzyme Appoints a High Trust Lead
Successful change programmes need to be owned by the business at the highest level. The site head took visible ownership
of the programme and appointed a full-time High Trust Lead from the business. Her role was to ensure that there was a
standardised approach to delivery of the programme onsite. The High Trust Lead was crucial in ensuring that leaders and
teams could discuss their results in a safe and authentic manner.
Building Trust is Aligned with Performance Management
As a statement of intent, the business agreed to include the individual trust scores for managers and leaders as part of
their KPIs. Leadership set the tone when it comes to building trust, and this design encouraged leaders to own their own
function or team scores and develop their own individualised trust action plans. This allowed the business to get
intelligence on the behaviours of their leaders and make interventions when necessary. The focus was to develop
accountable, high-trust leaders at all levels within the organisation.
Genzyme Builds an Internal Great Place to Work Team
A cross-functional team of volunteers was set up to support and implement the Great Place to Work programme across the
site. Each of the ten main business functions were represented on the team. It provided insights into the culture, helping
understanding of the survey results and their dissemination across the site. This team were trained on the Great Place to
Work tools and methodology and became knowledge experts.
2. Robust Analysis Provides Clarity of Direction
Once the approach was agreed for the programme, the Great Place to Work Institute rolled out its Trust Index Survey to all
staff and a detailed assessment was carried out on the organisation’s people policies and practices.
Results are In
A survey results workshop was held with the site leadership team. Benchmark
data helped the team identify areas of opportunity. This session addressed the
overall trust levels within the organisation and those areas of the business that
were particularly challenged. All leaders’ trust results were mapped with their
performance levels. This revealed some conclusive insights into the leadership
culture on site and leaders’ developmental needs. Results provided each leader
with the basis of a personal journey to maximising trust in their teams.
“What we found was that our
low trust leaders were leading
our lowest performing teams”
Richard Bierney
Site Head

4. Great Place to Work Team
Having identified the scale of the challenge and the areas of opportunity, the
onsite Great Place to Work team also had a session with the Institute on the
results. Action areas were drawn up for the team to work on for the coming
year. The Institute provided team coaching on how to operate as a team and
shared practice examples of Great Place to Work teams from other
organisations.
Leveraging the Great Place to Work Network
20%
Percentage of low-trust
leaders - 2010
The High Trust Lead worked with the Great Place to Work Institute to ensure alignment on the action plans and the
approach to be taken. In addition, she also attended many of the Great Place to Work forums to gain insight into other
organisations that had been on the journey. Once the direction and action plan was agreed, the focus moved on to
making improvements and building capability.
3. Investing Energy in Building Capability Pays Dividends
The programme action plan for Genzyme Waterford focused on change from
three perspectives, owned and driven as appropriate:
1. Site wide strategic issues were owned and actioned by the senior
leadership team.
2. Vertical team or function challenges were owned by individual
leaders at each level. Each leader developed their own local trust
action plan based on their individual results.
3. Horizontal tactical issues in three areas were owned by the
Genzyme Great Place to Work team.
Trust Action Plan in Detail
As identified, the key to the success of this programme would depend on the ability of each leader to build high trust
within their teams. All leaders were provided with their own trust results by the Great Place to Work Institute and were
supported through coaching and a trust action plan methodology in terms of how they were to build trust levels within
their teams.
Each leader was tasked with a successful execution of the trust action plan methodology. This was to ensure that results
were shared in a safe manner, and meaningful conversations were developed between leaders and teams. They liaised
with the High Trust Lead onsite who ensured that these interactions were done in a consistent way.
Community of Practice
A high trust leadership programme called Giftwork was rolled out by the Great Place to Work Institute to support leaders
in how their daily interactions with their team could make or break trust levels. This programme was focused on the ‘how’
a leader can build trust through quality communication, recognition, and interactions with their team.
A leadership trust forum was set up for leaders to come together and discuss any cultural and people challenges that
existed within their teams. This was an opportunity to share best practice between leaders on how they were building
trust. This forum created a sense of community amongst the leaders as there was a strong commonality on the people
issues they were facing.

5. Great Place to Work Methodology Highlight
Trust Action Plans
Trust Actions Plans set the development agenda for individual leaders, by providing a roadmap for their leadership
practice aimed at enhancing the levels of trust between them and their direct reports. Each leader was coached on how
to share their results in a consistent and authentic manner.
Ask
The Trust Index survey results were broken down by functional areas and each
leader was provided with their own set of results.
Listen
Functional teams were brought together to review the site and team results.
Team leaders shared their own results. If needed the High Trust Lead sat in and
facilitated the session.
Share
Each team member was asked to share their reflections on the results and to
identify areas of strength and weakness as revealed by the survey. The survey
results were used to spark the conversation with team members.
“For employees and leaders
this approach went from
something they had to do to
something they wanted to do
as they began to see the
results and the outcomes
from the programme.”
Richard Bierney
Site Head
Understand
Both leaders and team members developed a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities for the team.
Act
Arising from the team conversations, an action plan was developed by the team and leader and recorded on an internal
system so the entire business could track progress. The leader and team worked together on making sure the actions
were followed through. Common actions that have been developed within teams improved communication within
teams, enhanced recognition practices, and built pride levels. For a lot of the leaders within the business, it was the first
time they had had meaningful interaction with their teams about their team culture. All leaders received coaching
support. Some of the previously low-trust leaders when the programme began are now leading the top performing
teams within the business with the highest safety and quality levels.
Internal Great Place to Work Team Makes a Difference
The team consisted of representatives from across the site and met
every two weeks. Some of the results of this team over the years have
been introducing a new approach to work-life balance across the site,
rebranding and communicating of compensation and benefits, and
redesigning of the hiring and induction programme within the site.
“Being part of this team gives you a
great opportunity to make a difference
to the workplace culture.”
Gemma Kennedy
High Trust Lead
This team is now used as a sounding board for any new initiative rollouts by the leadership team. One recent example of
this team’s impact is during the rollout of a new HR system Workday which was due to be implemented across the site.
The team looked at the timelines for its rollout, and also helped shape the messaging and language of the rollout to ensure
it landed with team members and leaders across the site.
This team played, and continues to play, a powerful role in leading out some new initiatives, and members of the team are
seen as change agents across the site.

6. Following the implementation of the Great Place to Work programme, Genzyme Waterford have made significant
increases in their trust levels. They have increased from an overall 52% level to 87% trust level. A key element of this
growth has been leaders taking ownership for building trust within their teams. There are currently no leaders in the
Genzyme operation that are considered low trust leaders.
Building Trust into your Organisation’s DNA Embeds the Change
“As a leader having trust as one of my
KPI’s is clear statement of intent on behalf
of the company to say that trust is just as
important as quality and delivery for me to
aspire to with my team.”
Leanne Hogg
QCC Manager
It was vital to build a programme that delivered sustainable
change – trust growth that wasn’t simply reliant on the
capability of certain individuals or leaders. Over the years
Genzyme has had leadership change and movement, but due to
the fact that trust has become standard work practice and is
built into the KPIs and metrics, the trust levels have been
maintained across the site. As a site, Genzyme have updated
their people practices to the point where they now recruit
people based on their propensity to trust, and promote and
reward people based on their commitment to trust.

7. High Trust Delivers Transformation at Genzyme Waterford
The Waterford Site Wins Over €450m of Inward Investment
After the acquisition of Genzyme by Sanofi, there was a fear that they wouldn’t quite understand the trust journey or
culture that the site had undergone. However, it quickly became evident that the trust levels within the site could be
leveraged within the group and created a unique selling point for the site to win inward investment from the Sanofi
group.
When the global leadership team of Sanofi came onsite, they detected something special within the site that captured
their imagination. They commented on the quality of the people but also an esprit de corps – a passion that they felt
from people within the site. The site trusted people at all levels to talk directly to the global CEO of Sanofi group when
they were onsite, about any business related topics from quality to cost issues. Due to the high trust environment
onsite, Sanofi knew they could rely on the site to deliver on any inward investments that they delivered to the
Waterford site. The site, due to its high trust and lean approach, were in a position to treble the amount of work they
produced without needing any additional headcount. With the launch of an internal mobility programme people were
willing to change their shift patterns and their line of work to help deliver any new products.
Waterford Site Stands Out from the Crowd
Creating a high trust culture has not only helped secure inward investment from the parent company, but has also
resulted in many member companies of the Sanofi group seeking out an understanding on how the Waterford site has
built and sustained a ‘high trust’ culture. They are seen not only as a centre of excellence for trust within the Sanofi
group, but also seen as a model for best practice amongst Irish organisations in all industries. The trust journey that
they have taken, growing their trust levels from 52% to 87%, has resulted in them becoming the Best Large Workplace
in Ireland for 2015.
Trust Becomes a Standard Work Approach
The process was built up over time, from the leadership team taking personal responsibility for having a trust culture
within the site, to each leader within the business taking ownership for trust building within their own team and
function. Whilst coaching support was provided to each leader in ‘how to build trust with their teams’, some leaders
were ultimately not successful and new leaders were put in place. Trust has now become a standard practice within the
business and leaders are measured, promoted, and rewarded based on their ability to build and sustain trust within
their teams. This has had a massive impact on the performance conversations within teams, where the content is now
focused around development needs and is future focused, rather than on managing politicking and negativity.
Key Takeaways
• Engage staff early for maximum ownership
• Create a full-time Change Agent or High Trust Lead
• Be the role model for change from the top
• High trust leadership = high performance teams
• Maintain consistent process for implementation
• Align trust actions with Performance Management System
• Ensure actionable change for leaders
• Power of public commitment to high trust
• Continue to share and celebrate success along the journey
For more information about building high trust and performance in your organisation, contact us:
Cathal Divilly, Managing Director, Great Place to Work Ireland, Hambleden House, 19-26 Pembroke Street Lower, Dublin 2
T: +353 (0) 1 678 8438 • M: +353 (0) 87 260 9566 • W: www.greatplacetowork.ie • E: cathal.divilly@greatplacetowork.com