The learning curve

By On Sep 1, 2014

Teacher student relationships have for long been a pivotal point in furthering learning in educational institutions. However, workplaces are also an extension of the learning process. Mentorship programmes that help train future leaders within a company do much more than that; they help increase organisational efficiency, bring in more clarity of the career path and boost employee morale. However, the concept is still nascent in the pharma industry and yet to pick up

A long journey

Commenting on the Indian scenario, Thammaiah BN, Country Director, Kelly Services India says that although mentoring as a concept is picking up in India, with large organisations seeing measurable RoI such programmes have, the concept of mentoring that is structured with a concrete progression plan for the mentee, does not exist in most of them. “Within the pharma space in India, we are now observing that there are companies with mentorship programmes to help employees have an overall development as a professional. However, when compared to the other sectors, we still feel that it’s in its nascent stage and needs to evolve further to make it more inclusive.”

Sridhar Ganesan, Country Head, Hay Group India opines that Indian pharma companies are evolving when it comes to understanding the importance of robust people management systems as a critical lever to sustain growth. People development, as a broader umbrella, however, is gaining ground alongwith performance measurement systems going beyond just focusing on financial metrics to goals related to employee/team development, he feels. He shares Thammaiah’s stance when he says, “Mentorship in Indian pharma organisations is yet to establish its presence in its true form. At present, there are instances of informal mentoring happening, but in pockets and across select entities only. Clearly, mentoring activities in Indian pharma are in no comparison to other sectors such as FMCG and IT where there are formal systems and processes enabling mentor mentee relationships. The Indian pharma indutry has to undertake a fairly long journey before they reach that level of process maturity.”

Clearly, the pharma industry is yet to be counted as one where a healthy mentorship culture thrives. However, a few multinationals operating in India have global programmes that run for the senior management. These are customised to India and have been quite successful.

Sudakshina Tyagi, Senior Consultant, Hay Group India, touches upon the mentoring programmes of Indian arms of MNC pharma companies mostly mandated by the regional and global teams and rolled out locally. She cites the case of an innovator organisation which has a structured mentoring programme for their key talent in mid to senior levels across functions. It enables them to seek inputs in the area(s) identified for development and groom themselves for greater effectiveness as well as build rapport with a senior colleague in the organisation for guidance and perspective. They had also initiated a local programme called ‘Mentor Minds’ for their front line sales (including field representatives and area managers) to enable a rounded professional growth for mentees, she adds. Another leading Indian MNC with increasing global presence has initiated a mentoring programme focused on high potential talent thrown up by the performance management system. Right now it is focussed on a select few employees who have displayed exemplary potential to take on larger responsibilities. Such programmes will help initiate atleast some momentum and their success or failure should be a learning experience to better developed programmes of the future.

Bag of benefits

The pharma industry has been beset with a lot of challenges lately including tightening regulations, changes in technology, government policy, consumer expectations coupled with globalisation, sagging economy and shrinking R&D budgets. Amidst all this, the ability to adapt to new environment becomes critical for pharma organisations. Mentoring can enable such a transition very smoothly, feel analysts. Ganesan feels that the success of a mentor-mentee relationship depends on the maturity levels of the participants to the process and hence serves its purpose best above mid management level.

“With so many issues surrounding sales effectiveness, sales as a function could be another area where mentoring can be strategically utilised to strengthen an individual’s identification with the company and thus reduce turnover intentions. This, when, sales manpower is distributed, remote and has limited connect with the organisation at large,” he says.

“We see a lot of companies hiring coaches for their top executives from outside as these coaches bring in a neutral view without any prejudices.”
Thammaiah B N,
Country Director, Kelly Services India

Sales teams also need to scale levels of responsibility in an accelerated manner, he chips in. Mentoring helps digest the new accountabilities in a realistic manner. For instance, making a shift from a therapy intensive role to a general management role with different therapies in the portfolio requires different approaches to work. Mentor can help the protégé to make this transition much more seamlessly. However, there needs to be a fit between the mentor and the mentee, compatibility is the key here. “We believe that a mentor/mentee should be given the liberty to choose each other, as it is important to have a connect between the two for the mentorship to work. At the same time, every mentor should be involved and needs to provide sufficient space to the mentee to grow and absorb the skills being imparted by the mentor,” echoes Thammaiah.

The benefits of mentoring are clear, but the lack of its initiation as a formalised system and process in the Indian pharma industry is proof enough of the potential barriers for effective implementation.

“Overall maturity levels of people management process, resistance of identified managers to spend time on mentoring activities while balancing their work responsibilities, accessibility and approachability of mentors and institutionalisation of a mentoring culture which is enabled by employee maturity and supporting processes yielding consistent control and hence outcomes, are some of the barriers we need to overcome to create a viable ecosystem,” postulates Tyagi.

Leaders as mentors?

Often it is the senior leadership within an organisation that has to assume the role of mentors unless there is a system of external mentors. Clearly, they can’t do so, if they lack the qualities required to fit the role. It also needs to be understood that their plate is already full when it comes to the responsibilities they already shoulder and so how do they balance the two roles? Is mentorship an extension of leadership and is senior management in companies well equipped to take it up? Ganesan offers a reality check.

“It is surely difficult for seniors in this industry to take on additional mentoring responsibilities along with their current roles and responsibilities especially in the light of such swift changes in the external environment impacting an organisations’ ‘time to market’. Mentoring is contingent on the level of seriousness both the mentor and his or her protégé impart to the entire process and requires time. Quite often than not, in an organisation with formalised mentoring systems more true for another sectors, seniors sometimes display reluctance, viewing expectations around mentoring as an imposition or another drain of their time”.

Even as leadership effectiveness subsumes an ability to mentor one’s team to move further up in terms of their growth and development, there is a need for a sustained effort to up-skill leaders in this aspect and enable them to carry this out with ease. Leaders need to display certain critical attributes in him/ her to be effective mentors. These include understanding and strongly exhibiting company values, having people development skills, problem solving ability and communication abilities. They need to possess a sound knowledge of career paths inside, and even outside, the organisation as well as a sensitivity to the mentee’s needs and aspirations. Their efforts must be directed at enhancing the mentee’s career potential, while looking for ways the mentee’s potential can benefit the organisation.

In some companies, mentoring at the very senior level is conducted by well-known external coaching companies or individuals. The top executives are then expected to pass on the learning’s to their teams. “We see a lot of companies hiring coaches for their top executives from outside as these coaches bring in a neutral view without any prejudices. For mid-level managers, mentors are identified within the system to groom employees on particular skill sets. More often than not, these are mentors who already have a particular role in the organisation but are willing to take up this additional responsibility of mentoring. This ensures the mentee is comfortable and as the mentor is from within the system, and helps saves cost too,” says Thammaiah.

Thus, mentoring is a critical part of human resource development within a company and needs to be in tune with cost cutting strategy of companies even as they strive towards better talent development strategies. “Most companies find it difficult to balance cost cutting and talent development and more often than not end up impacting employee productivity while doing the same. There is also a growing recognition that mentoring compliments other employee learning activities. Thus, in the face of cost cutting when training related activities are on the decline, mentoring can act as one of the most cost effective tools especially if it is based on an internal model (internal mentoring) .

However, mentoring standalone may not be sufficient to drive an effective development agenda for an employee. It has to be part of a holistic people development architecture,” concludes Ganesan.

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