Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We are continuously building the company we all want to work for, and our customers want to work with. That’s why our efforts not only benefit our colleagues, they are also key to addressing and solving complex business needs and challenges for Syneos Health and our customers.

We celebrate our talent; we live our Values and we won’t tolerate discrimination of any type.

We take pride in creating an environment where our employees – of all backgrounds and beliefs, including: Race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, mental, physical and invisible disabilities and veteran status – are encouraged to bring their Total Selves to work each day and embrace our culture.

How does this come to life?

We know companies who are leaders in inclusion, equality and diversity are more likely to be high performing, able to embrace change, and achieve better business outcomes. Why? Because when we bring together diversity of thought, backgrounds, cultures and perspectives – we’re able to build a place where everyone feels like they belong – we can focus our time, talents and experience on tackling the toughest problems in our industry. We stand to meet that challenge and have created a strategic framework centered around our People, our Customers and our Community, to guide our journey.

People
Customers
Community

People

Build a diverse workplace culture, fueled by inclusive listening, learning and employee voices, to speed therapies to market.

Our Employee Resource Groups: Fueling our DE&I Efforts

Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) focus on our employees and enable our leaders to listen and learn together. Ultimately, they foster a work environment that includes and embraces racial, ethnic, and gender diversity and other individual differences that ultimately allow employees to bring their Total Selves to work. Our ERGs are voluntary, employee led, and Company supported. They aim to build community and solve business problems while cultivating leadership skills. Syneos Health employees join ERGs to:

Enhance career development by seeking out leadership opportunities

Bolster personal growth by participating in formal programs like mentoring

Drive business results and influence our policies, programs and other DE&I efforts

We are growing our ERG presence globally and adding new ERGs every year. In summer 2021, we added three ERGs – Developing Professionals, Asian, and People with Disabilities – and our Latino ERG is underway. Check back for more information as these groups grow.

Black Employee Resource Group
With 500+ members globally focused on recruitment, representation, career development and visibility of Black leaders, the group drive awareness and spark change across the business through education events that support a culture where Black employees can thrive.
The group have hosted numerous events and educational sessions, including Black History Month (US and UK), Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Day; engage employees through guest speakers, panels and internal events such as a book club; actively participate in our Mentor program and in the McKinsey Black Leadership Academy (US and EMEA) with continued cohorts planned on an ongoing basis.
Our People

Harvey Austin,
Co-lead, Black ERG, U.S.
Having a diverse and inclusive organization that values the perspectives and experiences of Black employees, especially in a service and communications industry, will only help to broaden our customer reach. Internally, the hope is that the Black ERG will encourage allyship, sponsorship and more consistent open peer dialogues. Diversity should be the standard, not just an option.
Syneos Health Women’s Group
With 750+ members globally focused on advancing the careers of women through achieving work-life presence and enabling personal and professional growth. Our Women’s Group has pioneered our ERG efforts and with an overall population of 67% women globally and 57% of directors and above filled by women. Our ERG helps to maintain this strength by engaging women across the globe in a variety of forums and communities.
Each year the ERG raises awareness around International Women’s Day and partners with corporate through our Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) Rising Stars and Luminary Program. In 2021, the ERG has grown globally launching communities across EMEA and India.
Our People

Jelena Kunic,
Co-lead, Women’s ERG, Serbia
Women leaders of today are tenacious and diverse. There is opportunity for each of us to become change agents for DE&I in our business environment, but more broadly also in the global space of clinical research. The year 2020 was a year of awakening to all type of prejudice. I am hoping that this trend will open up the door to more women, enhance our global diversity in our talent pool and foster collaboration across different locations and geographies
LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group
Our members are globally focused on building a safe, inclusive work environment and educating the Syneos Health community on workplace challenges the community faces.
In addition to education and awareness campaigns during Pride month annually, the group launched a pronoun awareness project encouraging colleagues to support in email signatures, during panel events and when introducing themselves in meetings.
Our People

Heather Martin,
Co-lead, LGBTQIA+ ERG, U.S.
We aim to have a positive, permeating effect on the culture of the Company by: improving the experiences of LGBTQIA+ identified colleagues; recruiting, retaining, supporting, protecting and developing increasingly visible LGBTQIA+ leadership; and, demonstrating support of LGBTQIA+ individuals externally. I think it has the potential to be one of the most inclusive groups, because however one identifies - as LGBTQIA+, as an ally, as an advocate or just as someone who wants to understand more about the community - this can be the group for them
Veterans Employee Resource Group
At Veterans ERG is focused on creating a veteran-friendly environment and partnering with the business to find solutions to hiring and retaining veterans.
Veterans comprise 11% of our workforce in the US which drives active members across the globe (primarily in the US and UK) focused on continuing to attract and retain veterans at Syneos Health. In 2021, the group launched a hiring initiative within the Clinical Development Solutions business unit and is actively partnering with Talent Acquisition and local veterans’ organizations. Once veterans are hired, they are partnered with an onboarding ‘coach’ and embraced by the veteran community.
Our People

Shaun Williams,
Executive Sponsor, Veterans ERG, U.S.
I hope this ERG gives veterans a place to belong within Syneos Health, in addition to their “full time” team, and gives them additional purpose within the Company. As with any other ERG, we want to make Syneos Health a place where veterans feel they belong, can be successful, make an impact and feel a sense of accomplishment in the support we offer one another. We want to be known as a welcoming place for any veteran at any point of their career transition.