Disruption of Careers in Pharma Industry – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1018

Disruption of Careers in Pharma Industry – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1018

Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1018 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here.

Credit: Antoni Shkraba

Credit: Lukas

Credit: Yan Krukau

Preamble

When I started at the entry level in pharmaceutical industry four decades ago, there was no talk about career progression. The market was dominated by MNCs who invested in training and development, but discussion on career planning for every individual was not done. The MNCs followed the rule of hiring at the entry level or at the highest level. Lateral hirings at middle and senior middle position were rare. The rule was to promote from inhouse talent. The problem, however, was that the companies were not expanding, and senior positions were few and far between. Even the first promotion took long years.

The change came with the rise of local pharma industry. The size of the sales teams and staff proliferated, loads of new positions opened, management structures expanded, and many new layers were added. The time to get to higher positions became shorter and shorter.

Performance pressure paradoxically worked both ways in pharma industry. The companies became hungrier and more desperate for growth and became obsessed with those employees who were bringing results. They wanted to retain them at all costs, not due to talent, but due to performance.

Factors Complicating Career Pathways

Lateral Hirings

Local corporates wanted to grow at a pace much higher than the market growth. They did not have time to wait for their own people to grow and take up more senior positions, and they hired directly at senior positions in bulk. Incidentally, at the time, the MNCs were squeezing and letting trained people go. These people proved a boon for local industry. They were trained, experienced, and full of new ideas, and it led to very rapid growth of local pharma. They were also instrumental is breaking the hold of MNCs and giving local pharma the impetus it was looking for. 

So many lateral hirings disrupted the career pathways because inhouse staff could not claim promotions as a matter of right. The career ladder, as touted by HR broke.

Dependence on People

MNCs took pride in their systems. Many of them over 100 years old and had taken years to build and refine their systems and practices. They did not bend rules for people, not easily. Local Pharma had no rule book, not for business, and not for management. They could do anything they wanted to achieve their objectives. Sales achievements became the most important parameter to judge people. Anyone bringing in more sales became dearer than others, no matter how they did it. Quality of sales went down the drain, quantity became supreme.

Local companies, before they became really big, were blackmailed by even frontline managers. They threatened to leave and take the team along. Many of them did, and the threat became real. Companies tried hard to retain performers through offering money, perks, and promotions.

Performance Disparity

The insiders know that lots of malpractices were employed by people at all levels to get business, from the lowly employees to the owners. No one had clean hands, and no one could morally stop anyone. Moreover, the appetite for performance was too strong to ignore. 

Not all people could employ such tactics. Even if they wanted, they did not have the capability. As it happens, the literal bad guys achieved high, and the proverbial good guys were left behind in the race. The disparity in performance continued to get bigger, so did the career progression.

Unqualified Promotions

When promotions were hard to come by, the procedure was more merit-based. Not that favoritism did not play, it did, but in fewer cases. Things changed and promotions became a wholesale affair and scores were promoted on the same date, especially at the beginning or in the middle of the year, the merit lagged, and personal discretions prevailed. Combined with the blackmailing, dubious promotions were given to unqualified people. When these guys went up the ladder, they hired and promoted more unqualified people under them. As happens in ‘impostor syndrome’, such people never feel secure in their senior positions. So, they do plotting, scheming, politicking, and arm-twisting to stay in place. 

Pharma industry has suffered more due to unqualified promotions than anything else. They were instrumental in promoting unethical marketing practices because they did not know how to do otherwise. They have also hired hordes of people like them or worse, who are also moving up the ladder. The reversal is well-nigh impossible.

Non-adherence to Policies

All pharma companies have policies and SOPs related to production and quality; many follow these, many don’t. Policies governing other functions are missing in most companies. There is no question of adhering or not adhering to policies. Where these are available, they are usually deviated from or flouted by the powerful senior managers; they say we know better.

The non-adherence to policies is causing discrimination, undue use of discretion, and favoritism. The corporate culture is haywire in these companies, and the corporate fabric is torn apart.

Sum up

Pharma industry of Pakistan, barring a few companies, has become less and less of a preferred employer to make a career. All the glittery pictures of big celebratory events posted on LinkedIn and Facebook are a cover up. If you look closely, everyone will be looking stressed and worn out, because this is what they are in reality. During the last couple of years, so many posts have appeared displaying sudden deaths of young pharma salespeople. In their zeal to extract more from the market, the owners and top management are literally killing people. 

True, that the perks have increased, there are bigger cars and better salaries, but the toll is even higher. 

It is never too late to review and start taking corrective measures, otherwise the people and corporates both will burnout.

Concluded.

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For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, however, it happens unintentionally, I offer my sincere regrets.