Summary

Sunpharmas first retail pharmacy was opened in 1998 and with the selling of the company in 2009, a completely new management team developed. Sunpharma organization included twenty seven corporate employees in departments of purchasing, finance, marketing, human resources and operations. These corporate staffers supported Sunpharmas 203 pharmacy employees in thirty five pharmacies. The number of pharmacies in Slovakia was high, creating a highly competitive industry environment. Every new Sunpharma pharmacy was designed as a modern open space with a large self-service section where pharmacists could assist in selection of both prescribed and self-service products. Recruiting was a major source of concern for all pharmacy companies in Slovakia due to emigration of pharmacists from Slovakia to other European countries for higher salaries. Sunpharma provided world class services such as drug consultation, price comparison information and a loyalty program that gave customer discounts and promoted Sunpharmas offerings. Sunpharmas organizational culture was environment friendly leading to employee turnover of less than even ten percent. The company offered accredited continuing education training to its pharmacists and pharmaceutical laboratory technicians. This included workshops, seminars, and lectures leading to an innovative training system. To understand the pharmacies from customers point of view, mystery shopper visits were conducted. Overall, the evaluation was quite positive with some imperfections in sales and communication skills of pharmacists. Linda Doloniva, Human resources manager for the Sunpharma group, needed to decide the kind of system that would provide continual training of employees in the organization. She also needed to convince the CEO as to how employee training would lead to improved effectiveness and productivity thereby improving satisfaction for customers and patients reflecting in improvement of sales results.

Current training programs Sunpharmas current training program provided its pharmacists opportunities to obtain the necessary credits. The company offered accredited continuing education training for technical and pharmaceutical knowledge. Problems Which factors are most important to increase the competitiveness of the company? What would be the best way to teach soft skills to pharmacists who prided themselves on their technical knowledge? Results of the mystery shopping report brought into light the problems with Sunpharmas pharmacies and pharmacists as they moved from the traditional Slovak closed space model to the new open-space, self-service model: Insufficiencies in detecting the customers needs (process of drug selection) Not providing information about the offered products, price and possible alternatives (process of drug selection) Lack of communication and professional skills. Personal approach in the form of a smile and thanks for visiting were missing (soft skills) Negative response about sales skills (soft skills) Loyalty program information of customer discounts and promotion of Sunpharmas offerings was not mentioned by any of the pharmacies Solution Although the mystery shopping report gave negative feedback about sales skills, but training the pharmacists should be the companys priority rather than training the salespersons because pharmacists are the only ones who are able to issue prescribed drugs. A competency approach should be used for developing a training system combining on the job with off the job sessions.

Implementation plan On the job training sessions: These sessions should focus on improving the following areas: Appearance of sales person Greetings and Salutation Completion of sales talk

The idea behind going for on the job training for these areas is that these can only be improvised upon by practicing in a real time environment instead of classroom sessions. Secondly, due to the time and budget constraints, these areas can be addressed more effectively to enhance productivity. Appearance of sales persons can be improved by introducing a proper dress code. The company can hire professional trainees who can evaluate and improve the soft skills of greeting, salutation and sales talk completion of the pharmacists. However, certain pharmacists might not cooperate with the trainers due to their individual ways of handling customers The company can also initiate training through video conferencing sessions. This would involve lesser cost in implementation due to the use of existing IT systems within the pharmacies Off the job training sessions: These sessions should focus on improving the following areas: Process of drug selection Loyalty program information

Sunpharmas open space pharmacies, which were quite different from the traditional pharmacies allowed a more relaxed atmosphere where pharmacists could assist in selection of both prescribed and self-service products. To differentiate themselves from other pharmacies, pharmacists should have good knowledge of the various health issues, suitable drug offerings to suggest to customers, and smart cross selling Annual workshops should be conducted by practitioners to make the pharmacists more informed about healthcare issues and the drugs associated with them

Apart from the current training program, the newly inducted employees who lack experience should be assigned mentors who are experienced and have been employed at each of the pharmacies for a significant time period

The pharmacists should be made aware of the importance of loyalty program of giving customer discounts and promotion of Sunpharmas offerings. For this, lectures and seminars should be conducted by experienced pharmacists along with marketing department emphasizing the benefits and advantages of giving customer discounts. The pharmacy staff should be shown the sales and revenue figures through presentations so that they start believing in the loyalty program as a competitive strategy

Combining Off the job and on the job training sessions: These sessions should focus on dealing with: Negative response about sales skills

We will suggest combined off the job and on the job training sessions for improving sales skills. For off the job training, workshops should be conducted to practically train pharmacists on improving cross selling and up selling. This can be done by portraying different customer stereotypes and sales strategies associated with them. On the job training session will help them to master their skills practically, on the spot trainers can directly evaluate pharmacists and work on their weakness. Challenges of the HR Department

External environment Shortage of pharmacists: Their demand was more than the supply, Moreover, emigration of pharmacists from Slovakia to other European nations further exacerbated the situation

Stringent legal obligations: As per the law, twenty credit points were to be earned by the pharmacists per year by participating in educational programs and this was governed by a licensing regulatory authority. This did not improve employee efficiency to a great extent due to the slowly changing knowledge needs of the
4

pharmaceutical industry; it was not every day that a new pharma product would be introduced in the market. This entire training program was cost and time expensive as it was repeatedly conducted for all the employees Internal Environment Budget for training was limited so the training methods needed to be prioritized The pharmacists wanted to exercise greater authority and thus would be resistant to the changes in HR policies. This was because each pharmacy had a lead pharmacist with a license to operate his pharmacy as an independent company and he did not want to compromise on this authority