CoverStory
Team members from Roche and TiER1 at the October 2024 Career Quest event on Roche’s Indianapolis Campus. DiJeana Posley is in the front row, third from left. To her right is Candy Gee (in red). Lori Satterfield is in the second row, fourth from left. The students were from Lawrence North and Lawrence Central high schools and attended the October 2024 Career Quest event on Roche’s Indianapolis campus.
Rapid advancements in technology and science combined with evolving customer expectations, regulatory changes and manufacturing and supply chain risks continue to shape the life sciences industry. Despite these potentially disruptive forces, 75% of global life sciences executives remain optimistic about the industry’s growth, according to Deloitte’s 2025 Life Sciences Outlook Survey.
To help develop the next generation of life sciences professionals who will fuel this growth, Roche Diagnostics, in partnership with consulting firm TiER1 Performance, created Career Quest, an annual event focused on providing high school students with early exposure and hands-on experiences engaging with careers in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM). The event uses interactive activities to help students understand possible career paths they could pursue in STEAM.
“Introducing students to STEAM early opens doors they may not have known existed,” said Candy Gee, head of inclusion & belonging at Roche Diagnostics U.S. “It’s about expanding knowledge, nurturing curiosity and laying the foundation for a future with the most innovation possible.”
In November 2023, Roche hosted the inaugural Career Quest at its Indianapolis campus, engaging 60 students from two local high schools. The following October, 60 more students from the same schools participated, and Roche replicated the event at company locations in Santa Clara and Pleasanton, Calif., and in Tucson, Ariz.
In February, Career Quest returned to the Roche Indianapolis campus twice, impacting more than 200 high school students in one week. As Roche prepares to host Career Quest in Indianapolis a third time in November 2025 as part of its annual Week of Giving, the organization continues to plan for long-term expansion and sustainment.
To create, market and implement an engaging event that could be replicated and scaled across locations, Roche used an event planning framework that applies design-thinking principles to enhance the participant experience before, during and after an event. Apply the following humancentered design approach to your next event to impact participants’ mindsets and emotions and drive desired behavior change.
In August of 2023, a cross-functional team of senior leaders and learning strategists joined forces to plan the inaugural Career Quest. After identifying the target audience, the team aligned on the event’s purpose and desired outcomes, which included the following goals:
Drive awareness and provide local high school students with greater clarity on different career opportunities in STEAM.
Gain meaningful engagement through hands-on learning labs that enable students to interact with tools and resources associated with different careers in STEAM.
Inspire the path forward and help students realize their potential and feel hopeful about what’s possible for their future if they choose to pursue a career in STEAM.
To brainstorm strategies for meeting these objectives, the team used a framework that considers what participants should think, feel and do at every stage of an impactful experience. The team mapped out key moments to impact and engage participants during five key phases of the event: entice, enter, engage, exit and expand.
Below are the planning considerations for each of the five phases and how Roche created an unforgettable Career Quest experience.
When designing the “entice” phase, focus on attracting participants through intentional invitations. Consider building anticipation through pre-event activities or mailers, like sending participants a themed itinerary or surprise gift.
The Career Quest planning team launched a marketing and communications campaign at the participating high schools to generate excitement among students and at Roche’s Indianapolis campus to recruit event volunteers. Materials included a hype video and an informational one-pager, which school counselors used to promote the event, as well as print and digital event posters.
For the “enter” phase, focus on setting the stage. Provide context, goals and objectives ahead of time or at the event’s start to set the tone and create clarity. Consider welcoming participants with energetic music and greeters and sharing a list of guiding principles for participation.
Upon their arrival, students were organized into five color-coded small groups and received event-branded swag, including a T-shirt, water bottle and drawstring bag. An opening ceremony featured high-energy music, an animated video that provided an overview of the event and a call-toaction that encouraged students to actively participate, lean into curiosity and share their learnings to earn prizes.
Focus on creating an experience that energizes and inspires participation. Think through the design of interactions and overall pacing of the schedule. Consider incorporating surprise elements, time for breaks, gamification and a mix of group and independent time.
After aligning on the Career Quest theme, the planning team designed five 20-minute learning lab-like “exploration stations” (one for each letter of the STEAM acronym) that featured interactive gamified challenges related to specific careers. In their small groups, students embarked on their “Career Quest” by visiting each exploration station, learning about different roles within the featured career field and completing challenges related to those roles to earn stickers.
Roche technicians, engineers and compliance managers helped facilitate the challenges at each station, providing students opportunities to interact with and learn from experienced professionals. Students completed their quest when they earned all five station stickers.
At the science station, for example, students learned about the job responsibilities of a research and development engineer, a manufacturing engineer and a manufacturing technician. Students also learned how blood glucose meters work and then practiced using a meter with a control solution. At the end, they played Hungry Hungry Enzymes, a variation of the children’s game Hungry Hungry Hippos, but instead of apples, the hippos gobbled up enzymes.
Each station followed a templated approach with branded creative treatment for the facilitator guides, role cards and station posters and stickers, making the event easy to take on the road to other Roche campuses. The gamified challenges at the other exploration stations included:
Technology: Beat the Bot — Students learned how Roche automation products work through a small instrument demo. Then, they tried to “Beat the Bot” in a capping tubes challenge.
Engineering: Lasers and Testers and Eyes, Oh My! — Students learned about different tools and technologies used in the manufacturing process and were tasked with guessing which strips were bad. The winner received a custom engraved pencil.
Art: A Hidden World Revealed — Students learned how staining is used in oncology to detect cancer, and then they constructed hidden messages to their partners to see an analogous process in action.
Math: Are you Smarter than an Algorithm? — Students learned how algorithms are used in oncology to detect cancer before attempting to score slides more accurately than an algorithm.
Focus on creating memories and momentum at the event’s conclusion. Consider capturing and celebrating participants’ shared achievements through summary drawing exercises, voting or survey tools and group photos.
During the closing ceremony, students shared their learnings, “aha!” moments and questions. The most engaged and curious students received prizes for their participation.
Focus on commemorating and activating the experience after the event. Make event insights actionable and encourage individual accountability into the future. Consider scheduling check-in meetings, sending event photos and resources via email and sharing content on a microsite.
The planning team collected event feedback from participants and school faculty through surveys. Based on this feedback, the planning team noted key lessons, which it has applied to subsequent Career Quest events to ensure continuous improvement of the experience. These include:
Begin planning early! A minimum of three months provides a healthy runway to engage key stakeholders, coordinate promotion and plan day-of details.
Engage community members and a well-rounded design team to ensure a broad range of voices and ideas are reflected in the event’s design.
Use a templated approach and create evergreen, reusable assets to reduce costs when replicating the event in other regions.
Focus on planning “moments that matter” that inspire event participants to think, feel and do in alignment with the event’s objectives.
Student and faculty feedback will continue to influence future iterations of Career Quest, which Roche hopes to expand to even more locations across the United States. As one of the largest biotech companies in the world, Roche understands the power of exposing students to corporate environments and connecting them with STEAM professionals in their communities where those businesses are located.
“Inspiring students through STEAM isn’t just about sparking interest — it’s about showing them they belong in the spaces where innovation happens,” said Lori Satterfield, senior manager, community engagement. “Today’s encouragement plants the seeds for tomorrow’s breakthroughs in science, technology and beyond.”
DiJeana Posley, MSM, SHRM-SCP, is with Roche Diagnostic’s U.S. Inclusion and Belonging Office. Email DiJeana at dijeana.posley@roche.com.
