Melanie & Susanne’s Story 

usanne is a devoted mother, passionate cook, and keen jogger. Equally, Melanie is a caring mother tenacious student and avid sewer. All they continue to learn and experience from these different roles; they bring to the role that they share as an Upstream Processing (USP) Development Manager.

We invite you to watch the video above to hear Susanne and Melanie share their unconventional career journey which led them to a job-sharing role where they both manage the upstream team in the vaccine development department in Bern. Their story demonstrates the breadth of opportunities that Johnson & Johnson can offer employees to enhance their personal and professional development.

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After their respective maternity leaves, Melanie and Susanne began their search for a people management role which would challenge and fulfill them but also accommodate their everyday life priorities and commitments. However, most management positions were full-time, not offering the flexibility or work-life balance they were both looking for. This resulted in them teaming up to apply for a full-time position at Janssen Vaccines in Bern, part of Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in Switzerland. Thanks to the support of the company and their manager at that time, this job-sharing position started as an experiment but has continued to flourish for over eight years.

According to Susanne and Melanie, the culture at Johnson & Johnson has provided many opportunities to learn and grow – cultivating teamwork, building on successes, and learning from challenges and thus achieving constant improvement.

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The job-sharing role has also offered Melanie the chance to pursue personal interests while advancing her career. For two years she has been able to further her education by engaging in extracurricular courses, which will not only enrich her individual learning but also that of her team and the organisation. Melanie says that thanks to job-sharing, she can reconcile all of her different roles which gives her a lot of energy and a sense of fulfilment. Susanne on the other hand loves cooking and thus learning about other cultures, spending time with her three kids or going for a run to free up her mind. All these activities give her a sense of balance which helps her to be the best version of herself at work.

This speaks to Johnson & Johnson’s ongoing commitment to creating an inclusive and innovative working environment where employees have exciting development opportunities and can bring their diverse experiences, skillset and ideas to work, every day.

At Johnson & Johnson, it's more than just work.