Team stability and employee engagement remain a top priority for both ICON and PRA, now and as the transition to a combined company occurs, after the acquisition closes.

As people-focused organisations, both ICON and PRA recognise that their employees are their greatest assets and are the driving force behind their respective companies’ success.

Both companies have strong people practices, competitive total rewards packages, and continuous learning and development cultures that aim to ensure that employees are engaged and personally and professionally developed and have long and rewarding careers in ICON and PRA.  Following is a summary of employee engagement initiatives and programmes that reside independently in each company. We look forward to bringing the best of both to the combined company, post-acquisition close, so that we can continue to offer employees exciting roles and significant career development opportunities, within and across the key service areas and geographies in the combined company.
 

Compensation

Total compensation in both companies is competitive, at, or above, the current market rates. Both companies conduct regular reviews of salary ranges, using best-in-class analysis, to ensure fair pay irrespective of gender, race or ethnicity.

As independent companies, both ICON and PRA have pay-for-performance and merit-based promotion philosophies and have strong track-records of developing talent and filling vacancies through internal hires.  
 

Continuous training and development cultures

Both ICON and PRA understand that success depends on the knowledge, capabilities and quality of their employees. Both ICON and PRA are committed to providing a continuous learning culture, delivered through focused resources, which are underpinned by clearly-defined competencies to clearly progress employees’ careers.

Both companies’ training and development programmes are aimed at developing scientific, technical and business knowledge to support employees at every stage of their career journey.  Programmes include tailored CRA Academies and a range of Project Management Curricula, Therapeutic-focused programmes and People Leader Development programmes.  Upon close, we will ensure that both companies’ excellence in training and development will remain a central focus of our people practices, to continue to advance employee careers.
 

Engaging employees through CSR programmes

Both ICON and PRA have corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes in place, which engage employees by providing them the opportunity to give their time and talents to their local and regional communities.

• CSR activities include employee volunteering, charity fundraising, matching donation programmes and corporate partnerships.
• Diversity, equality and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives are underway at both companies to bring global teams together and ensure that employees from different regions and backgrounds feel welcome, empowered and comfortable throughout their careers.

A clear focus on employee engagement

Operating as separate companies, ICON and PRA regularly conduct surveys and focus groups to gauge and measure employee sentiment towards their respective companies. Ongoing measurement will continue in the combined company, post-close. Examples include: 

• Comprehensive global engagement and enablement surveys, which measure how people feel about working for ICON / PRA and whether they have the tools to enable them to do their jobs effectively. Feedback from these surveys help create detailed action plans at a group, function and team level.
• Pulse check surveys to measure employee sentiment on specific topics / initiatives
• Stay interviews to help managers understand why employees stay and what might cause them to leave
• Skip level meetings to develop trust and rapport between senior leaders and employees