| Excellent Article in Express Pharma |
Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) recently
conducted national conclave on ‘Human Resource Management in Pharmaceutical
Industry: Challenges and Future Directions’ in Mumbai. The Organisation of
Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), the umbrella body representing mostly
MNC pharma companies, actively supported this initiative to analyse the
importance of human resources (HR) in a start-up, budding or a well-established
pharma company.
Talent acquisition, employee retention and management are some
of the important topics which experts at the conclave discussed in the context
of what more can be done to improve the organisation. These days employee
retention is a big challenge because job-hopping is a common trend, which
employees adopt for quick growth in terms of money and designation.
S D Gupta, Director, IIHMR said, “By introducing courses such
as Hospital and Pharma Management, IIHMR strives to resolve this issue of talent
crunch by producing well-qualified students capable of making a real difference
in the field of pharma, by preparing them for the corporate roles.
Aditi Kare Panandikar, Managing Director, Indoco Remedies
said, “Indian pharma companies have a great future. At home we have a market
growing at 15 per cent, while internationally our companies have an opportunity
to supply to the world. As Indian companies ramp-up to get their share of this
growth, availability and retention of skilled manpower will remain the single
largest factor which will determine our success in the years to come."
Ajit Dangi, President and Chief Executive Officer, Danssen
Consulting highlighted, “Inspite of having over thousand pharmacy colleges in
the country and over twice the number in management, recruitment for pharma
companies continues to be a challenging task. It is estimated that less than one
third of the graduates coming out of such institutes are `employment ready ` and
have to be retrained.”
Dangi further stressed on the gender equality factor in the
pharma sector and said that today there are a number of women graduates in
science and management. HR Policies therefore have to make conscious efforts to
promote gender equality within the organisation. Unfortunately, barring few
exceptions that too in promoter owned companies, one finds very few ladies in
the board room of pharma companies. We have to learn from sectors like banking,
FMCG (and off course politics ) etc. which have produced some outstanding lady
CEOs.”
It has been predicted that by the year 2015, the Indian pharma
industry would be the third largest all over the world with an output of $20
billion. R&D is the core function of pharma companies and requires
high-skilled employees to deliver that. With the dawn of the product patent era
in India from January 1, 2005, focus now shifts on ‘Research and Development’
for the pharma companies to survive in the global market. We can no longer rely
on generic drugs and innovation is the need of the hour in the pharma industry.
India falls short of highly qualified individuals suited to perform these
functions.
An organisation’s growth is dependent on the strength of its
employees. The first step in developing a strong employee base in an
organisation starts with identifying and recruiting the correct human resources.
An organisation must have an eye to pick the right candidates from the market,
sift out the less-than-optimum candidates, based on qualification, technical and
soft skills. These criteria will greatly reduce the time gap between screening
and appointment. However, it does not end there. The ongoing goals for human
resources are talent development, employee retention and conflict management.
These form the core of human resource development.
Gupta further said, “Human resources must not be selected
using ‘one approach fits all companies’ formula. An ideal mix of technical and
managerial skills specific for each role makes for a good candidate able to do
justice to his role in an organisation. And our course of pharma management
prepares the students just for that.”
The role of IIHMR is not confined to provision of education.
“We work at state as well as national level. We strive to build attitude towards
accepting evidenced-based and not hunch-based policies. We at IIHMR also
organise workshops on policy formulation,” added Gupta.
The attrition rate in the pharma industry is 20 per cent as
per Gupta. This can be reduced by providing a positive atmosphere to its
employees in terms of supportive culture, training programmes, a policy in place
for conflict management and adequate ‘rewards and recognition’ programme is
crucial to employee retention, which in turn, contributes to the company’s
growth. As per reports, this year's salary hike will be the highest for the
Indian pharma industry, with a projection of 13.3 per cent hike. With this in
mind, it becomes the responsibility of an organisation of creating proper slabs
for salary hikes for its deserving human resources.
Talking about his vision for India for the year 2020, Gupta
says, “Only 35 per cent of India’s population can avail of the benefits of
healthcare. Our goal for year 2020 is making good quality medicines available to
the Indian public at low cost. And this is only possible for when there is
highly talented manpower capable of drug R&D. And providing an education
capable of producing such students is the first step in doing so and the goal of
IIHMR too.”
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16 - 31 March 2012
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