How Do You Develop the Best Workforce?

Making sure that your employees have the leadership and selling skills necessary to successfully compete in today's market is essential to your corporate growth. So how do you provide continuous people development? InVentiv Health’s Bryan S. Horveath has the answer.

NGP. Is people development an enigma in your sales management training program?
BH. For sales forces as small as 5 or up to 10,000, members the sales manager’s role continues to play a critical role in the development of their sales representatives. Sales managers, if trained properly, can and do directly impact the bottom line if they can lead a team successfully. Influencing the ability of sales representatives to think strategically and providing adequate coaching and feedback are just a few of the key factors that contribute to success.

Most sales management and leadership trainers would agree that their onboarding or new hire training processes are in place and working. Many of these curriculums do, in fact, include skill development training. There is even a considerable degree of crossover in a wide range of management and leadership courses on such topics as delivering feedback, coaching, and counseling, just to name a few.

NGP. Then why aren’t your sales representatives getting the attention or the skill development that they need to be successful?
BH. According to the Health Strategies Group, some of the barriers that prevent sales managers from spending more time in the field with their representatives are associated with the amount of time spent conducting administrative tasks. Conference calls alone can quickly consume several hours of the day. Deadlines for data collection and reports also dictate what and how managers prioritize tasks. This leaves little communication time left for managers and their sales representatives.

Furthermore, in some cases, field managers are taking on account and customer responsibilities, as well as serving a business intelligence role by filtering specific customer needs and data back to the corporate headquarters. Obviously, this dramatic shift has had an impact on their time and ability to manage and develop their teams.

Generally speaking, the intentions of your management teams are good. The breakdown often occurs with their inability to strike a balance between requests from their supervisors and corporate headquarters and what is important for the long-term growth of the district – increasing the performance level of their sales representatives.

NGP. If this is the case, why can’t we mirror the top five percent of successful managers who inherently are developing people skills on a consistent basis?
BH. Senior sales management, as well as management and leadership trainers, often make the mistake or assume their sales managers are actively developing their people skills in the field. Therefore, they do not see the need to invest further in a continuous learning approach for middle management. A quick assessment of the management team’s skills, experience, and time dedicated to people skills development can provide the data necessary to make your business case for advanced management training

Tenure for your management team plays a significant role in their ability to balance managing the day-to-day management and administrative tasks with leadership and development initiatives. As managers gain experience, become more efficient in their roles, and receive additional skill development training, they can naturally transition to a greater emphasis on leading the district to success.

NGP. What are some of the ways management and leadership trainers can raise the awareness level and sense of urgency of this important training area?
BH. Assuming that you have included the content of people skills development courses into your initial sales management onboarding training, the next step is to verify that this knowledge can be transferred at the field level. Including plenty of application exercises, activities, and business case examples will assist in the transfer of these skills. Post- training evaluation, assessment, and observation by the regional management team can measure the transfer level as well.

Bryan Horveath is the Vice President and Managing Director for the Ventiv Professional Development Group, a division of inVentiv Commercial, located in Somerset, New Jersey. Horveath leads a team of training professionals that design, develop and deliver quality training and development services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to his promotion, Horveath held the position of Executive Director, Client Training and Development. In this capacity, Horveath led the team of skilled trainers who were responsible for sales management and representative training for a majority of the inVentiv client projects.