About Authors:
Jeevan Sharma1*, Davidson Rajesh2
1B.Pharmacy, JSS college of pharmacy Ooty
2Regional manager, Natco Pharma litmited, Chennai
*jeevan.pharma@yahoo.com
ABSTRACTS:
Attrition refers to the reduction in staff and employees in a company through normal means, such as retirement and resignation. The primary focus of this article is to present the high rate of attrition seen in the pharmaceutical marketing industry , its causes and controlling strategy for retentions of pharma sales representatives. Though attrition is a natural phenomena in all industries , Indian Pharma marketing industries is worst plagued by It. After IT and BPO , pharma marketing industries experience the greatest rate of employee leaving the company for various reasons. While global pharma marketing attrition rate is 10-12% per annum, the rate of employees who leave the organization in India is 25 -30 %. The attrition is more prevalent in the middle and junior management level.
Reference Id: PHARMATUTOR-ART-1392
INTRODUCTION:
It is imperative for the pharmaceutical industries to understand the high rate of attrition prevalent in the Pharma industry, identify the underlying causes for it and take suitable measures to prevent it .
CAUSES :
Indian pharma marketing is one of the fastest growing knowledge based industry. In the mean time, It suffers the higher rate of attrition particularly in the field of pharmaceutical marketing in comparison to the technical and R&D field of the same industry. Many Pharmaceutical sales representatives or Medical representatives leave company in a short while and this trend is more seen among the fresher and medium level manager level. HR personnel see this attrition as demand and supply rule where higher demand to meet the competitive sales is supplied by two sources : Educational institutions and market. At present the demand of experienced and qualified employee outstrips the supply. The consequences is large attrition of field force moving from one company to another in a blink of eyes. The money factor is one of the major causes for this high attrition. Inadequate salary or compensation packages is a prime factor for switching the organizations Immediate gain in lucrative salary packages makes the employees more prone to change the organizations.
Now to meet the global competitiveness; Pharma companies have transformed their survival strategy to competitive strategy as a result there is huge pressures on the shoulder of medical representatives for higher secondary sales achievement and thereby constantly poking the field force which eventually leads to attrition .So the people change organizations frequently . Similarly poor management is also one of the key factors responsible for leaving the organizations. There is a popular saying “ employee leave the boss not the organizations. “ Poor management includes lack of support to the employee , lack of transparent career growth ladder , adverse relation between the boss and subordinates , lack of motivation . Psychological relationship between leaders and employee is very crucial for sticking of employee in a particular organization.Thus Organization culture also plays a significant role in sticking of Pharma sales representative in the same company for long run.
Source : Career jet research ,Chennai
Beside above stated causes , the high attrition may be due to wrong selection candidates, lack of interest in job , migration to the different areas , personal problems and others.
Conclusions :
Pharmaceutical sales representative are the driving force of any pharma industry for the sales achievement of their products. Pharmaceutical industries invest high amount of money on their recruitment and training. Thus it is imperative that pharma industry should retain their valuable assets. Thus attrition is a serious issue and puts pharma industries in a huge loss and thus its challenge for pharma industry to retain the employees. Human resource management team plays a vital role in retaining employee in pharma industry. Their role stats right from the selection of right candidates through stringent recruitment procedures , proper training to the employees and taking some anti-attrition measures or retention policies. Similarly conducive working environment, favorable organizational behavior to increase the confidence, self-esteem and morale of the medical representatives. , reward and recognitions of outstanding performers can reduce the higher attrition rate in the field of pharmaceutical marketing industries.
BIBILOGRAPHY :
1.Fred Luthan ;(11th edition ) ;organization behavior ,Mc Graw Hill International Publication page no . 157-192
2.Careerjet 2011 : Pharma marketing analysis
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