QUICK READ: Throughout the country, employees are demanding a say in the way their companies do business because of social issues. Why haven’t we heard this type of corporate activism in healthcare?
Pharma culture
KEY THOUGHT: Pharma companies three on meetings. According to an article in MIT’s Sloan Management Review, the average manager spends 23 hours a week in meetings, up a whopping 10 full hours (!) since the Mad Men era. Some of those meetings are no doubt productive but conservatively at least a third of the time spent on meetings is wasted in irrelevant conversations, boring presentations, and meandering chit-chat.
SUMMARY: No company can succeed without employees who care about customers. If pharma doesn’t make an effort to recruit and retain passionate, caring employees than they are in huge trouble.
- According to the Conference Board worldwide, only 13 percent of workers feel “engaged”—meaning enthusiastic at work and committed to their companies—according to Gallup, which has tracked this since 2000.
- Employees are merely the fuel that generates sales growth.
- If you’re living in fear of losing your job, then all of your decisions and actions are geared to preserving your job rather than taking risks.
KEY TAKEAWAY: [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] Before any company can talk innovation it has to examine the barriers to its own culture.[/inlinetweet] Nowhere is this more true than within pharma companies. Pharma company culture is like a sinking ship that won’t go down.
KEY THOUGHT: The culture within Biopharma companies may be driving away talented employees and leading to the decline of effective marketing.
One of the questions I get asked and asked again is “why haven’t most pharma companies changes in their approach to DTC and digital marketing?”. The answer to this is complex, but at its heart most major consulting research has indicated that time and time again pharma is a laggard when it comes to change and hiring people who can really question current thinking when it comes to meeting the needs of consumers of healthcare.