Great Place to Work and Fortune magazine have honored Astellas as one of this year’s Best Workplaces in Chicago. Astellas, ranked #10, is among the best companies to work for headquartered in Chicago. This year’s Best Workplaces in Chicago award is based on employee feedback collected through America’s largest ongoing annual workforce study of over 1 million employee survey responses and data from companies representing more than 6.1 million U.S. employees.

“Earning this recognition is a true testament to who we are as a company – championing a diverse and inclusive culture and best-in-class benefits to help employees thrive in and outside of work.” said Anne Allison, executive director, Human Resources for US Commercial. “Our employees are one of our top priority, and we are proud to be a great place to work in the Chicago region.”

Great Place to Work is the only company culture award in America that selects winners based on how fairly employees are treated. Companies are assessed on how well they are creating a great employee experience that cuts across race, gender, age, disability status, or any aspect of who employees are or what their role is.

“Creating a positive and engaging employee experience is the first step to ensure our employees bring their best self to work and are equipped with the right resources to inspire and care for our patients.” said La Toya McClellan, senior director and global head of Engagement, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. “Our culture is how we bring these strengths to light through our cutting-edge innovation to advance healthcare.”

At Astellas, we believe a diverse organization is a healthy and successful organization — a culture that values diversity of thought and experience creates a company that is smart and flexible. In this spirit, we recently added a Heritage Day to our existing suite of time-off benefits. This was a direct response to employee suggestions to recognize cultural days of significance as part our holiday schedule. All employees receive a flexible day off to celebrate a meaningful day to them personally or honor a cultural, heritage, or religious observance of their choosing.

Last year, Astellas launched a new partnership with Carrot Fertility that further augments our gender-neutral support for all employees in creating and expanding their families. The partnership with Carrot Fertility allows Astellas to provide all employees with the most comprehensive fertility benefits that cover all paths to parenthood, including adoption, gestational carrier arrangements (commonly referred to as surrogacy), fertility treatments, and pregnancy. Throughout this path to parenthood, Carrot benefits include one-on-one consultations, mental health and emotional support from experts in family-planning (including those with dedicated expertise in LGBTQ+ family-forming), unlimited and free virtual visits with these experts, and more.

To further support family-forming efforts, Astellas has increased its Adoption Reimbursement from $10,000 per adoption to $25,000 per adoption, to a lifetime max of $50,000. Astellas also increased parental leave for baby bonding to eight weeks at 100% salary, to give all parents the opportunity to strengthen family ties and promote healthier babies.

In addition, Astellas has seven active Employee Impact Groups (EIGs) that help strengthen our culture and provide support and mentorship in developing the careers of employees. The EIGs (Abilities, African American, Asian, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, Military and Women) create a sense of belonging and empowerment for underrepresented groups and allies, and serve as advisors that provide trusted and valuable subject matter expertise to leadership and the business. Almost 1,500 US employees (45%) are involved with EIGs.

We care for our people and exemplify this through our “One Astellas” approach that values the contribution of all our employees working together in harmony, and that care is ultimately reflected in our commitment to the thousands of people around the world who rely on our medicines.

About Astellas
Astellas Pharma US, Inc. is a U.S. affiliate of Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc., a pharmaceutical conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. Astellas stands on the forefront of healthcare change to turn innovative science into value for patients. Keeping our focus on addressing unmet medical needs and conducting our business with ethics and integrity enables us to improve the health of people throughout the U.S. and around the world. For more information on Astellas, please visit: https://www.astellas.com/us You can also follow us on Twitter at @AstellasUS, Facebook at www.facebook.com/AstellasUS or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/astellas-pharma-us. 

About the Best Workplaces in Chicago™
Great Place to Work selected the Best Workplaces in Chicago by gathering and analyzing confidential survey responses from its study of thousands of companies representing more than 6.1 million U.S. employees at Great Place to Work-Certified™ organizations. Companies must be headquartered in the Chicago metropolitan statistical area to be eligible. Company rankings are derived from 60 employee experience questions within the Great Place to Work Trust Index™ survey. Read the full methodology.
To get on this list next year, start here.

About Great Place to Work®
Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, it has surveyed more than 100 million employees worldwide and used those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: trust. Its employee survey platform empowers leaders with the feedback, real-time reporting and insights they need to make data-driven people decisions. Everything it does is driven by the mission to build a better world by helping every organization become a great place to work For All™.
Learn more at greatplacetowork.com and on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.