PEOPLE & CULTURE PULSE · ISSUE 6 · JUNE 2026
A monthly benchmark for People & Culture teams: the talking points that matter and how your culture compares, built on Deltabase data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.
Editor's note
June is wellbeing month for this newsletter, and Life Sciences gives us a useful lens. Men's Health Week put male wellbeing at work in the spotlight, large pharma companies kept making smaller, rolling cuts, and the UK jobs market showed signs of steadying. Life Sciences is one of the few sectors where employee sentiment improved in 2025. The task for People teams is to keep it that way.
Leroy Hall, Deltabase
The month in three
1. Men's health moves up the workplace agenda
What happened: Ahead of Men's Health Week (15 to 21 June), Howden published analysis on 5 June urging employers to rethink support for men. It cited ONS data showing healthy life expectancy for men of 61.5 years, and noted that men account for around three-quarters of suicides in England and Wales.
The Deltabase lens: Work-Life Balance is positive across the large pharma employers we track, but uneven. In 2025 it scored +29.7% at Bristol Myers Squibb, +18.5% at Pfizer (up 8.4 pts), +9.8% at AstraZeneca and +5.8% at GSK.
So what: A positive average can hide groups who are less likely to ask for help. Wellbeing support has to be designed to reach them.
2. Pharma keeps trimming roles
What happened: June brought further small-scale cuts at large drugmakers. Merck filed a notice on 2 June covering 88 roles at its Rahway, New Jersey site, part of a $3bn cost-saving programme expected to affect about 6,000 employees. Novartis eliminated 60 positions in New York tied to closing a former Tourmaline Bio facility, reported on 23 June.
The Deltabase lens: Novartis held steady through 2025, at +14.8% in 2024 and +14.9% in 2025. Bristol Myers Squibb, running its own multi-year cost programme, fell 3.4 pts to +3.1%, the lowest in our Life Sciences peer set, with Supportive Leadership down to −36.2%.
So what: Rolling cuts can erode trust in leadership even when each round is small. Track Supportive Leadership through every phase.
3. The UK jobs market steadies
What happened: ONS figures released in June put UK unemployment at 4.9% for February to April 2026, down 0.1 percentage points, with the employment rate at 75% and economic inactivity at 21%.
The Deltabase lens: Life Sciences enters this steadier market from a position of strength. The sector median Employee NSS rose from +10.4% in 2024 to +11.0% in 2025, and six of ten Top 100 companies improved.
So what: As hiring confidence returns, strong sentiment becomes a retention asset. Protect it before competitors start recruiting again.
Stat of the month
+11.0%: the median Employee NSS across ten Life Sciences Top 100 companies in 2025, up from +10.4% in 2024. Six of the ten improved.
| Company | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|
| Sanofi | +17.2% | +21.4% | +4.2 pts |
| Novartis | +14.8% | +14.9% | +0.2 pts |
| Pfizer | +5.9% | +11.6% | +5.6 pts |
| AstraZeneca | +7.2% | +10.4% | +3.3 pts |
| GSK | +15.5% | +9.5% | −6.0 pts |
| Sector median (10 companies) | +10.4% | +11.0% | +0.7 pts |
Source: Deltabase Culture data, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), 2024–2025. Sector median across AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer and Sanofi.
Spotlight: AstraZeneca vs GSK
AstraZeneca's overall score rose from +7.2% to +10.4% in 2025, while GSK's fell from +15.5% to +9.5%, putting AstraZeneca ahead. Career Progression drove the switch: AstraZeneca improved 26.0 pts to −32.7%, while GSK fell 17.0 pts to −50.8%. Supportive Leadership moved the same way, to −20.6% at AstraZeneca and −22.5% at GSK. On wellbeing, both slipped slightly on Work-Life Balance, to +9.8% and +5.8% respectively, well below Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb.
For your People team
- Break wellbeing data down by group; an organisation-wide average can hide those least likely to ask for support.
- Where cost programmes run in phases, track Supportive Leadership after every round, not once a year.
- Read Career Progression alongside wellbeing; AstraZeneca shows career sentiment can move 26 pts in a single year.
See how your culture compares. Book a 30-minute culture benchmark walkthrough against your peer set. Book a walkthrough →
Sources: Howden (5 June 2026); Guidechem, Global Biopharma Layoffs June 2026 (June 2026); North East England Chamber of Commerce summary of ONS labour market statistics (18 June 2026); Deltabase Culture data.