The Pharmaceutical Business   12 of 13  
     5. Human resources – training
Learning Centre
Different companies approach training in different ways. Pillco has invested in a Learning Centre. This provides a variety of resources for both general interest and work related issues. The company believes that there are significant advantages in offering learning outside the workplace. It means that employees get a flavour for learning something new which motivates them. Also it creates a "Learning Organisation" which has a number of advantages:
  • it can anticipate problems which could occur
  • it considers the external environment
  • it continuously improves
  • it rewards creativity and initiative.

A Learning Centre can use a range of multimedia training packages. These improve individuals work performance and then monitor and record the progress. Taking vocational qualifications (NVQs and SVQs) helps to evaluate the effectiveness of the training and provides extra motivation. They also provide national standards of assessing the employee’s understanding of the job and discovering any further training needs.
Photo of employee John Chapman, a Personnel Officer in the Personnel Department has worked with the company for eight years.
He does not want to take a degree but is keen to have his experience and training accredited by the University, as this will give him a recognised qualification, based for the most part on work and training activities he would do anyway. Once he has 120 credits, he will be awarded the University’s Diploma of Personal and Professional Development (Level 2)
Figure 33. An example of how The Caps Programme operates
Specially developed training programmes
Other companies use specially developed training programmes to both develop and appraise employees. Capsulike uses ‘The Caps Programme’.

In the Caps Programme “organisational purposes are diagnosed and met by joining supervisors and employees in the pursuit of mutually agreed goals and objectives which are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bounded) and joined to an action plan. Secondly The Caps Programme brings the employee and supervisor together to talk about how they can improve their co-operation, communication and teamwork at the workplace."

The Caps Programme is run in conjunction with a local University. It offers employees the opportunity to achieve external qualifications through the University.
Flow chart
Figure 34. The Caps programme.
The Caps Programme offers people working in the company the chance to drive their own development. They gather the skills they need to perform effectively and achieve the career they want. Figure 33 shows an example of this.

The Caps Programme provides the company with a number of benefits:

  • performance is benchmarked against best practice and the latest academic standards - meaning that the company can judge how it is performing against the best of the competition
  • new skills and capabilities are in place to meet the future needs of the business
  • there is an increased drive to promote growth and improvement across the organisation.
Assignment trigger 11

Why is Pillco prepared to invest large sums of money in its Learning Centre?

Capsulike is clearly keen to promote The Caps Programme. Why do you think this is so?

Check your answer

Do training schemes just benefit the company? What are the differences between the two approaches to training outlined above.

Check your answer
Photo of hike
Figure 35. Team working can encourage creativity and innovation.
Managing without hierarchy
Pharmaceutical companies need to get the best possible performance from their employees. One way of ensuring this is through training. Another approach is to look at how people are organised. Many companies now use team working as a way of improving overall efficiency. Pillco has tried teamworking in a number of areas. They have found that there are often definite benefits but the initial cost of implementing the change to working practices can be high.

The advantage of a team culture is that it should encourage creativity and innovation. This in turn should lead to significant productivity improvements as individuals work together towards a common goal.
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Figure 36. The effects of teamwork in the packaging department at Pilco.
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Figure 37. The effects of teamwork in the primary production areas at Pillco.
Is teamwork all positive?
Teamworking tends to flatten the organisational structure and makes it difficult to create promotion opportunities. This means that other ways of rewarding individuals have to be developed to accommodate the change.

In general, the costs of switching to teamwork occur in the short run while the benefits tend to occur in the long term.

Initial costs include:

  • low morale initially due to change
  • loss of work time due to training
  • financial outlay for team training
  • dramatic role change for supervisors/managers
  • possible need to replace some managers who can't adapt

Long term gains can outweigh these initial costs but it depends on the department. A move towards teamwork needs to be evaluated carefully before a decision is made to change. Some tangible benefits will definitely have to be identified in order to justify the upheaval. In certain production areas productivity might increase or quality might improve. These, or some other measurable improvement, can be recognised and easily associated with the team, showing that teamwork has proved worthwhile. Where measurements can’t be identified, then a change to teamworking may not be that easy to justify.
When does a change in working conditions succeed?
Where is teamworking effective? Pillco found that teamworking was effective in:
  • packaging
  • some processing areas
  • project work which involved people working together

Pillco switched to teamwork in their packing area. Figure 36 shows what they found. However when they attempted to introduce teamwork in some of their primary production areas (figure 37), they found that it was less successful.
Assignment trigger 12

Evaluate what determines whether teamwork will improve productivity or not.

Check your answer

Evaluate a change to teamwork in terms of costs to business, benefits to business, costs to individuals, benefits to individuals.

Check your answer
Our experts' view Close

Both Pillco and Capsulike are prepared to invest considerable sums into training schemes because they believe that developing their humans resources is the key to competitiveness in the future. This connects with many of the points raised earlier in the booklet such as:

  • the value added in medicines comes from people's ideas and creativity
  • the importance of high quality and good manufacturing which in turn depends on how people perform
  • technology is constantly changing and pharmaceutical manufacturers have to respond.
Our experts' view Close

Training clearly does not just benefit the company - the employee benefits from increased skills and new knowledge which helps with career development. The difference are:

  • Pillco's Learning Centre is a stand alone facility created by the company outside the workplace, it makes considerable use of multimedia packages, it involves creating a "learning organisation".
  • The Caps Programme is run in conjunction with a local University but works far more as part of the normal working life of the company. It focuses on providing ways in which employees and supervisors can jointly create action plans to work to improve communication and teamwork.
Our experts' view Close

Figures 36 and 37 provide a lot of ideas. They suggest that planning is very important. That teams need to be fully involved with the process not added in later. So the successful teams in packaging were involved in choosing the machine, were responsible for writing the procedures and training manuals. This is summed up by the last paragraph of Figure 36. "By working closely with the operatives, senior managers, engineers and others involved in the project, has installed a feeling of ownership throughout and by sharing responsibility and recognition the team achieved their goal".

Whereas the attempt to introduce teamworking in the primary production areas suffered because the training was carried out away from the workplace and did not focus sufficiently on the team leader.

A key issue seems to be the extent to which existing company cultures can adapt easily to working in a team. Where they can teamwork is a success, where they cannot it is much less successful.
Our experts' view Close

Costs to business. Disruption to work - while the team is being created and trained; Cost of training

Benefits to business. Higher productivity; Better quality control; Team feeling ownership of process could result in more rapid implementation times; A more flexible department - teams could be better suited to responding to change;

Costs to individuals. Need to learn new ways of doing things; Possible loss of status as the hierarchy in the department is flattened.

Benefits to individual. Greater job satisfaction as part of a team; Greater opportunity for developing new skills or new roles.