HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT 01

PRASAD RATHI - 18PGP238 GROUP 01 – SECTION C

INDUSTRY – PHARMA
Extent of the Problem

High Attrition in Pharma sector has plagued the industry. The extent of the problem is summarised
below:

• It has the highest attrition rate in India (30-35 %)

• 30-40% attrition among field level employees and 10-12% in the managerial area

Being a knowledge-based industry, Pharma relies heavily on the following two departments:

 Research and Development

 Marketing
• Employees of these departments face huge work pressure and time is the essence when new
product is to be launched and market has to be captured
• High level of competition exists with over 10,000 companies in the unorganised sector and
nearly 300 in the organised sector
• Competition from foreign companies have increased as they attract people with their
promises of higher pay and better labs, leading to a huge brain-drain

Figure 1: Attrition rates in various industries in India

Turnover Drivers

The high regulations and fierce competitions have led to more complication and stressful on jobs.
Hence in bid to be the industry leaders firms poach for talented employees by paying high salaries and
other benefits as talent is rare in this industry.

The main reasons for turnover in Pharma industries are:

 Long working hours which often range from 10-16 hours

 High stress at work especially for Sales Team for to meet the targets and for Research and
Development team to create new drugs
 Lack of job security as many companies shut down or are acquired by major giants
 Very less post-retirement benefits
 Better salaries and other benefits by competitor companies
 Negative environment at workplace due to continuous pressure
 Complicated hierarchies and politics within organization
 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT 01
PRASAD RATHI - 18PGP238 GROUP 01 – SECTION C

100 88.8 91 88
76 73.6
80
51.2
60
40
20
0
Working Hours Work Stress Fluctuating Targets Better Lack Post- Efforts not
Opportunities retirement benefits recognized

Reasons

Figure 2: Major reasons for turnover (%)

Employee Retention Strategies

Following are a few retention strategies that needs to be adopted to retain the employees-

 Track job fulfilment parameters as youth today prefers it over financial rewards -
 Fair pay grades with clear benefits and being at bar with the industry average
 Offering retention bonus instead of joining bonus
 Supporting in Career planning and advancement options
 Making targets more flexible and giving managers training to keep the team motivated
 Flexibility in terms of work conditions fosters creativity and innovation

Figure 3: Retention Strategies

1. https://www.elixirpublishers.com/articles/1350304353_43%20(2012)%206763-6772.pdf
2. https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/in/pdf/2018/04/KPMG-India-Annual-
Compensation-Trends-Survey.pdf
3. http://www.ijetsr.com/images/short_pdf/1504536038_292-301-ieteh905_ijetsr.pdf
4. https://www.pharma-iq.com/business-development/articles/retention-of-talent-in-the-
pharma-industry
5. http://www.pharmafile.com/news/501513/pharma-companies-look-boost-employee-
retention
6. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.392.7196&rep=rep1&type=pdf