A Remedy to Achieve Success

Retaining qualified talent in the pharmaceutical industry has always been essential, but with a skills shortage looming, the need is more critical than ever. Here, Michael Ward, VP of Business Development for Beeline, describes the talent management challenge and what can be done about it.

NGP. As a provider of workforce acquisition management e-learning and analytical products and services, can you explain how companies like yours benefit pharmaceutical and biotech clients?
MW. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies face many of the same talent management issues experienced by other organizations, including talent acquisition, performance management and retention of good employees. Such overriding needs, coupled with compliance and regulations specific to the healthcare industry, make for an even more challenging environment. Furthermore, biotech and pharmaceutical companies depend heavily on a technically competent workforce, which certainly adds to the challenge.

Through Beeline’s technology, content, and services we help companies make better decisions throughout the entire life cycle of the employee. These decisions are related to areas like talent sourcing, hiring of candidates, managing performance, training and development, and career and succession planning. As many people know, the cost to hire, manage and develop personnel is staggering, particularly in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Companies like Beeline can not only significantly reduce these costs, but also help generate revenue through workforce tools and services that allow for greater efficiency and greater effectiveness.

NGP. What tips can you offer companies looking to streamline the recruitment and management of permanent, contract and service labor?
MW. We believe that the paradigm will shift when it comes to sourcing labor. Historically, companies had to decide up front how to find the best talent: whether to hire from within, recruit for permanent hires or procure temporary or contract labor. These decisions were made before the search had even begun and then the organization followed a specific process to acquire talent. Organizations should be able to search for talent across all of these sources simultaneously. Through technology and linked networks, we can find the best talent to meet the requirements of the job, including existing employees, contractors and/or temps.

For example, in the medical industry, nursing resources are a major supply and demand challenge today. Hospitals and clinics need to be able to source nurses in a variety of ways and they need to be able to look across the entire labor force and find the nurses that they need – they can’t just go down one path anymore. My recommendation, again, is to start looking at it much more holistically, versus limiting your talent source up front.

NGP. C ould you please explain the benefits of working with a web-based application to manage contract procurement, project-level resource procurement and milestones in funding and payments?
MW. First, I’ll address the web-based application (what we call ASP or Application Service Provider) – the benefits of which include significantly lower costs than when purchasing a client-hosted solution, whereby you have your own application residing on your server. We can significantly reduce the costs by simply licensing or leasing a part of or the entire application.

In addition, clients benefit by getting regularly scheduled enhancements based on what the overall market or customer base is looking for, which they wouldn’t get if they had purchased their own application. Customers, then, don’t have to pay for all the enhancements they need because they’re being added for all clients across the board.

The second part of the question involves managed contract procurement. Beeline is used by several pharmaceutical firms, and the benefit of contract procurement is that it ensures pricing is at a market price or better, so we can ensure that there’s a higher level of competitiveness within the contractor network. The second benefit is the visibility across the workforce in terms of what opportunities are available to the contractors.

What’s more, we can offer a much higher level of compliance and we can manage – and virtually eliminate – co-employment. Companies can track how long people are in a particular place much more easily through the systems we provide.

NGP. H ow does a managed services provider help a client company manage its contingent workforce, and why is Beeline’s approach unique?
MW. Managed service providers allow organizations to focus on their core competencies while outsourcing the tactical duties associated with vendor management to an outside provider. This is key in running their businesses, because they are focused on the things they do best. Also, they don’t need to worry about vendor management as a distraction. Beeline’s MSP levels the playing field and ensures that the staffing firms are competing for the business by providing their best candidates at their best rates. Beeline, which is somewhat unique, offers a vendor-neutral model, specifically in the pharmaceutical world.

Most pharmaceutical companies have contracted with a major staffing firm to provide contractors at a negotiated markup. This model puts the proverbial ‘wolf in the hen house’, as the provider is encouraged to just fill positions.

We are vendor-neutral and so derive no benefits by staffing. We can therefore focus on the core responsibilities of managing the program. Responsibilities include sourcing and screening candidates; monitoring the supplier performance; managing contractor spend and negotiations on the actual rates; ensuring compliance of suppliers and contractors; providing reports and data to the organization on spend and performance; serving as a subject matter expert in providing best practices to clients; and assuming the contractual relationship with suppliers. Some of these are just part of the program, and others are options that a client can choose.

NGP. Finally, what are some of the biggest staffing challenges within the biopharmaceutical industry?
MW. Staffing challenges for the biopharmaceutical industry mirror those of other sectors in the area of talent management. We are facing a shortage of knowledgeable workers, and competition for these workers is extremely high. For those already working for an organization in this industry, retention is probably the number one issue for employers.

Organizations need to assume and take on a comprehensive approach to integrating a sourcing and talent management initiative into their organization, so that they can manage these challenges. There’s no longer a single method or a single strategy guaranteed to retain employees. The workforce is extremely complex and diverse, which requires organizations to consider a multi-faceted approach for acquiring, developing and retaining individuals.

About Michael Ward
Michael Ward is VP Business Development for Beeline. He was President of Integrated Performance Systems, Inc. (IPS) until Beeline (an MPS Group company) acquired IPS. He received his Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Dayton and earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering from Michigan State University.