The Pf Company Perception, Motivation and Satisfaction Survey provides a benchmark of pharmaceutical sales force opinion in areas including remuneration, satisfaction with current employer, ETMS usage and perception of other pharmaceutical companies.
As part of the research, respondents from the pharma sales force are asked to rank 18 work factors in terms of how important they feel they are and how satisfied they are with these areas at their current company.
There is some consistency in the responses over the last two years, demonstrating that pharmaceutical sales employees’ priorities have not really changed since 2008. The most notable variation in terms of motivation is that the respondents of 2009 place greater significance on company culture than belief in products, making the top five priorities when seeking an employer: salary, relationship with direct manager, work-life balance, job security and company culture.
After the honest admission that salary matters most, respondents have placed value on more quality of life and relationship factors, signifying that these ‘softer’ company benefits remain very important to employees. It is unsurprising that job security is still a top priority for the work force. Although there is now more security throughout the healthcare sales industry, most respondents will have experienced redundancy, either themselves or through the eyes of a colleague, and have not forgotten the impact this can have.
Satisfaction data for 2009 reveal that respondents are still most happy with the products that they are currently promoting, but their concern over the future pipeline is evident, revealing an awareness of the industry’s current pipeline worries due to patent expiries and low numbers of potential new blockbusters.
Car policy is also a downside for many, although salary is still mid-way up the table, demonstrating that this is not an area of particularly low satisfaction. It reflects badly on companies that two of the top five work factors in terms of motivation feature very low down for satisfaction: work-life balance and job security, indicating that employers are not doing enough to improve working hours and reduce insecurity amongst their employees.
The Pf Company Perception, Motivation and Satisfaction Survey has been conducted annually by HSP, publishers of Pf, since 2002. It provides a benchmark of pharma sales force remuneration, motivation, satisfaction, perception and recruitment. The survey is managed by Dr B Payne of Conker Statistics (A fellow of the Royal Statistical Society) and respondents are anonymous. These latest results were gathered in early 2010, but relate to 2009.