Is Talent Unstoppable?

pharmafile | April 7, 2006 | Feature | Business Services |   

A sales manager's job is not to grow sales – it is to grow successful sales people. Forget the days of fear and intimidation. Today, pharmaceutical sales leaders must cultivate their sales teams through persuasion, recognition, and training. The same can be said about any functional arm of a pharmaceutical company.

It is the manager's role to help the brand team, the market research department or the sales force refine its talents. Managers also must keep an eye on helping the team members enhance their skills while providing a better understanding of company efforts and objectives, as this improves communication among employees and employers – thus providing one vital cog to employee satisfaction.

Few companies in a study by Best Practices, LLC, a pharmaceutical consulting and benchmarking firm, rated their employee satisfaction programs highly. Most indicated that raising employee satisfaction and morale is an issue that nearly all companies struggle with – though the size of a company can impact strategies and approaches that are utilised. Large companies find that better communication programs and rewards programs improve morale the most. For medium-sized companies, offering flexible career assignments has a larger effect. Smaller organisations find greater success by using recognition programs and non-tangible events.

In the United Kingdom, where productivity has been an issue of concern in top corporations, a recent study by workplace communications consultant group CHA speaks volumes. Workers want their employers to tell them what they want in simple, plain language if they expect the employees to work better and harder.

Pharmaceutical companies must recognise the importance of keeping their workers happy and engaged, as this is an industry where hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake annually. Too much employee turnover in a certain division or functional area can damage a company's overall performance when you consider that turnover can cost three to five times an employee's actual salary. So what makes employees choose to leave their jobs?

Disaffected employees cite five reasons for most often leaving their jobs:

• Poor working conditions
• Lack of appreciation
• Lack of support
• Lack of opportunity for advancement
• Inadequate compensation

According to the CHA study, 60 percent of workers who felt uninformed about the company and their role in the company plan to leave their jobs in the next two years; workers who know what the plan is are five times more likely to be motivated and 65 percent claim that too much of the information they get is irrelevant to their job thus impacting their employment satisfaction.

Staff retention strategy employed by top companies

The top companies create strategies to avoid these pitfalls and instil a corporate culture that fosters satisfaction and accomplishment among their employees. In fact, the recruiting at these companies does not end once an employee is on the job. Management at such companies maintains ongoing and continuous efforts to recruit their top achievers. Such efforts show the employees that they are valuable members of the company, and this helps them stay engaged and excited about where they work.

A recent U.S. study conducted by The Gallup Organisation indicates why it is critical that employees feel good about whether their organisations care about them or not, as it correlates with their levels of workplace engagement. Gallup calculated that between 14 to 19 percent of U.S. employees were actively disengaged during the past two years, which has meant lost productivity for those employees' corporations – to the tune of about $300 billion per year. Engaged and happy employees showed much more promise and added to higher levels of employee retention, customer retention, organisational growth, market share, and profitability.

Research by Best Practices, LLC around improving employee morale also showed that top performing companies communicate more frequently with employees than the typical corporation, keeping workers abreast of impending changes and even involving workers in the decision-making that occurs.

For instance, 60 percent of best-in-class companies have found ongoing coaching and feedback to be very effective as compared to 47 percent of the standard benchmark class. A greater disparity shows in regards to how high performing companies view cross-functional teams and councils. Again, nearly 60 percent of the top companies find the cross-functional teams to be most effective in engaging employees, more than double the 25 percent of companies in the typical benchmark class.

A common saying goes that employees do not leave companies; they leave managers. So companies now are looking for ways to maintain happy, longer-tenured employees. With that in mind they are encouraging their frontline managers to not only oversee and guide the work that the employees produce, but to also take time to get to know the individuals at the workplace. This does not mean that the bosses are becoming best friends with the people they direct, but the managers are spending more time finding out about workers' families and interests outside of the office.

For instance, 42 percent of best-in-class companies believe that learning about the employees' families and personal lives is very effective in maintaining high employee morale, as compared to 14 percent of the overall study. The managers at these top level companies also engage more frequently in writing personal thank-you notes to their employees and setting up off-site gatherings than managers at other companies. Both groups still find little need for social gatherings or regular lunches with their employees, noting that these have little impact on employee job satisfaction.

Training is just as crucial to retain current employees, as it is to get new hires up to speed. For instance, training allows sales representatives to maximize each customer interaction, which can, in turn, help the sales representative feel better about the work he or she produces. An effective training program keeps the staff engaged and limits the amount of learning on the job that must occur. As a result, employee frustration decreases and the staff are not always looking for better opportunities elsewhere. And training is not something that only frontline employees need, according to what workers in the United Kingdom are saying. A 2005 report, Good Boss Bad Boss by Andrea Gregory and Lisa Smale, noted that 25 percent of bosses in the United Kingdom were seen as bad or dreadful. The study of 1,084 UK employees also showed that only 4 percent of those employees would give their bosses 10 out of 10.

The employees cited poor training and development (44 percent) as the main cause of their poor job performance, and overwork (34 percent) as another key factor.  

Encouragement and incentives produce positive results

All of this said, employees do appreciate management teams that outline and follow up on job performance. Expectations spell out what it takes to succeed, and should be articulated during training and in an ongoing manner.

When managers set out to coach employees, they should seek to advise and counsel, making it very clear what the expected goals are for the jobs. Top managers build rapport and gain buy-in from their employees by seeking to help in deficient areas as opposed to placing blame or giving ultimatums. They choose to focus on using the coaching sessions as a way to overcome problems and further strengthen a worker's overall skill sets.

Of course, using a culture of co-operation also helps improve employee satisfaction in this area as well. When outlining an employees individual performance goals and how to reach them, elite managers will develop the plan with their protege, ensuring that the plan is comprehensive and results-oriented as this gives the worker something to strive for beyond some nebulous corporate mission statement.

All top companies in an employee engagement study by Best Practices found that regularly reviewing individual and team goals with workers was vital to raising employee morale. Of these same top companies, all also believe that all-hands meetings are quite effective in helping employees understand how their individual, team and business unit contributions impact company performance.

A key component of employee satisfaction, across all levels, remains recognition for a job well done – whether it be a tangible recognition such as a plaque for employee of the quarter or a quarterly bonus, or an intangible acknowledgement such as a handshake or a congratulatory note. More than three-quarters of organisations have formal rewards and recognition programs in place, according to a study conducted by Best Practices on this topic. All of the pharmaceutical companies that participated have implemented such programs, which are often based on company values or goals.

More than 60 percent of the 110 corporate respondents in this Best Practices study noted that senior managers often reward employees on an individual basis. Eighty percent of the pharmaceutical and biotech companies that participated in the study follow this same path.

Companies tend to run the gamut when it comes to rewards and recognition as far as what they offer. Seventy-six percent of survey respondents in a Rewards & Recognition study stated that they give gift certificates as rewards to recognise good work, while 69 percent and 50 percent give plaques/awards and cash, respectively. Employees do appreciate such honours, but most consider cash or time off as the most effective motivational means of recognition.

More than 40 percent of corporations offer rewards of less than $100. Only 20 percent offer rewards of more than $1,000, with the pharmaceutical companies in the benchmark class trending toward the higher award allowance.

An effective manager juggles many balls in fulfilling his/her responsibility to the company, but perhaps nothing is more important than the willingness to ensure that employees receive consistent and productive training.

In a sales force training study conducted by Best Practices, 82 percent of pharma/healthcare companies provide more than 1 to 2 weeks or more than 2 weeks of training per year for all sales reps; compared to the manufacturing industry where 63 percent of companies provide only 1 to 5 training days per year.

Fifty-nine percent of pharma/healthcare sales managers spend more than half of their time managing and coaching their sales reps. In the manufacturing industry most sales managers spend less than one-quarter of their time on sales force management/coaching.

One method that companies use to ensure employee satisfaction with the top sales representatives is to provide post-instruction practice and coaching in a controlled environment. Most successful pharmaceutical companies require representatives to carry out customer visits while managers accompany them to listen, coach and assist. This experience gives managers an opportunity to provide feedback to employees, an activity that is critical to employee satisfaction and ultimately retention.

While many companies might focus on poor performers in an attempt to get them up to speed, best-in-class companies provide special attention to their top performers as well. By regularly assessing and coaching the top producers, managers can sustain higher employee satisfaction for its most coveted sellers.