Vault’s Verdict

Syneos Health features a young, dynamic, and creative culture across its offices in the EMEA region, with employees coming together around delivering excellent performance for the firm’s healthcare and life sciences clients. The firm organizes regular team events, such as team lunches, to promote staff collaboration. Senior leaders take a genuine interest in work-life balance for their teams, and the firm requires no in-office working days. Client needs rather than internal projects drive travel, and employees enjoy the freedom to manage their own schedules.

The firm incentivizes individual performance through a promotion plan that lets high achievers move quickly through the firm’s ranks. Mentors assigned when employees join the firm help guide them through the career development process, even opening up international opportunities.

Syneos regularly reviews its compensation package against competitors and offers competitive pay with similar firms. As employees become more senior, sales and incentive compensation become a more and more important part of their earnings, which works well for some staff while others wish their compensation plan took more internal contributions to the firm into account. Additional benefits include counselling services, gym membership reimbursement, and free access to counselling.

Employee Reviews

Firm Culture

• “Genuine leadership commitment to performance improvement along with work-life balance. Culture orientated towards client excellence and collaboration.”
• “Great culture: young, dynamic, creative. High diversity. Syneos’s communications and creative agency business provides a very unique, diverse, and creative blend of culture.”
• “Regular events and team lunches are organized at the office, fostering a sense of community. There is a flexible and understanding approach to working hours and organization. Employees are treated with trust and respect, reinforcing a culture of autonomy and maturity. Trainings set up to familiarize with AI tools.”
• “Surrounded by smart minds focused on healthcare and pharma/biotech industries.”

Quality of Life

• “Expectations for hours are reasonable and translate to reality. Travel only required for pre-planned client (or internal) meetings and events. PTO is readily available and can be taken without much or any approval.”
• “Good project management to mitigate burnout risk, annual leave respected at the independent contributor level, empathetic managers.”
• “No mandated office days. Nice to go to the office twice a week and not feel bad if life gets in the way.”
• “Hybrid working expectations with working from home or local office. Travel is typically concentrated around client-based needs vs internal administrative.”

Career Development

• “If you perform consistently well and go above and beyond you can get promoted swiftly. Strong informal training and mentoring and I have been able to move to Milano which is a fantastic perk of the company to work remotely.”
• “Robust career management process, orientated around a mentor rather than line reporting structure. Investment in internal and external training.”
• “Strong informal mentorship system driven by engaged senior leaders with significant subject matter expertise.”
• “Good/real possibility of promotion if you perform. Transfer possible from one team to another, or even another country, is possible. Redundancy and competition between different functions/workstreams can reduce quality and slow down some career development. Specific path for technical consultant should be created (e.g., operation lead).”

Compensation

• “Good pay at consultant level relative to competitors. Regular pay reviews.”
• “Senior leadership, in particular, are remunerated in favor of sales, in a very traditional model, reflected in the career development model. So, poor sales but huge contribution in other areas can result in pay frozen for three years and no bonus, with little effort put into motivating people outside of this model.”
• “Very competitive for consulting in the area, although you do need to fight for the right compensation since there is often a cap of the % increase you can have at any one promotion or review.”
• “Free access to counseling, mental health support, wellness (gym) memberships, activity participation events.”

Inclusion

• “We have multiple ERGs (e.g., DE&I, LGBTQIA+, Veterans, Women’s Group). Active sponsor and attendee at minority conferences (e.g., NBMBAA Conference).”
• “Culturally, the workforce is diverse, so Syneos Health has achieved an inclusive environment not as a result of quotas and policies, but by being inclusive. Very refreshing.”
• “No personal experience, but I have never heard any negative sentiment voiced. Many groups established for specific communities within the workplace.”
• “We have a mixture of people. It is a meritocracy.”

Business Outlook

• “We are a strong provider in a niche space with a good reputation for collaboration and impact with and for our clients. The market is difficult (life sciences) at present due to external factors.”
• “Strong 2025, meeting targets with a full pipeline into the new year. Growth opportunities and new accounts being unlocked.”
• “Varied organization, so some areas will fare worse or better over the next 12 months. The diverse nature is a strength, though.”
• “Uncertainty, like all life sciences firm at the moment.”

Hiring Process

• “Clear guidance and communication from recruitment lead, scheduled calls with hiring team, multiple stages in increasing seniority. Ideal candidate should be willing to learn, thrive on navigating challenge and complexity, and be personable/nice to work with.”
• “Talent Acquisition team runs the process. Ideal candidate is self-motivated, collaborative, and inspiring. Our consulting values are Trust, Courage, Respect.”
• “They seek individuals that are strongly autonomous and can take on huge workload.”

Interview Questions

• “Where do you see the industry in X years and why would you be well placed to support our clients?”
• “R&D pipeline. Which assets should they invest in, get rid of, etc..”
• “We typically use a combination of behavioral interview questions and case study questions. We also use Caliper/Korn Ferry assessments for specific senior roles.”