Top Employers Leading from the top
Sanofi’s commitment to health permeates the organisation
Bringing together a multigenerational, multi-gender, multi-national and multi-cultural team has driven the culture within pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi. Quoting South African general manager, John Fagan, who said: “From the top, the light is always green,” Preesha Persad, Sanofi South Africa’s leadership and people development manager, stresses the importance of top executives creating a culture where individuals can experiment and test concepts, which she says helps towards managing people differences.
“Each person’s want and desire is to invent or innovate and we believe that encouraging this and believing in our people is what has made us successful,” says Persad. “Last year’s success does not guarantee success in the coming year. With this in mind, we created the Ideation Lab, which is a centre available to all employees for brainstorming.” This is the 11th time that Sanofi has applied for and received the Top Employers Certification and this year achieved top spot in the pharmaceuticals industry. Heidi Swanepoel, Sanofi South Africa’s compensation and benefits manager, says: “This is a huge accolade, as this is a first for us. We know how stringent the process is and its status denotes a certain cadre. We can also garner from the questions what other companies are doing.”
Persad says: “This is an invaluable yardstick or measurement to ensure we are ahead of the pack. It also adds credence in terms of attracting new recruits, but foremost, it is a source of pride to be recognised in this way.”
Jakes Doorsamy, head of the company’s human resources, says: “This certification allows us to keep our standing in the human resources community, through evaluation via robust processes and systems.
Asked how an international company manages to maintain its individual touch, Doorsamy explains that as an employer, one needs to understand employee lifecycle in the organisation.
“We have a cradle to grave approach, from the time we start with a new employee to the time they leave the company for whatever reason. From recruitment through to compensation and the training and development process, we touch our employees in various ways and employee engagement is a top priority.”
Integrated technologies
“Sanofi as an employer has worked hard to sell us as one Sanofi,” continues Swanepoel. “It is important that all initiatives are launched globally and that every employee can benefit from the same depth of training but also lives the same values and objectives. This has made a lot of difference.”
Persad says there are very important ways individual employees stay in touch with the organisation. “We made advanced use of technology and have various communication platforms which all work in an integrated fashion.”
“The message is echoed from the top by our general manager, John Fagan, who has the saying: ‘look after people and the profits will follow,’ ” says Doorsamy.
“One of the fundamentals of human resources is managing the policies and procedures. As a pharmaceutical company, we must comply with many forms of legislative requirements.
“We try to create an environment where policies are merely guidelines and we try to have practices that enable employees to thrive. We are always looking at our policies and testing them, either by benchmarking them or coming up with new ways to address staff without choking them.
“Red tape is the result of [a lack of] trust. If you don’t trust and empower those below to make decisions, you encourage red tape. Trust employees and allow for mistakes. It is the making of and central to the learning process. Create a culture of progressive learning, engagement and cut bureaucracy. Sometimes a wrong decision may turn out to be a right one.
“The older generation is set in its ways and they tend to prefer policies and structure. The new generation prefer a more flexible approach but policies need to follow a com- mon thread. However, irrespective of this, it is the level of engagement with all age groups that will drive clarity of purpose, mission, vision and values.
“Many pharmaceutical companies became giants as a result of patents and successful blockbuster or super drugs,” says Swanepoel. “Now, with the flood of generics on the market, it is vital to retain the edge and remain competitive. People are pivotal to this.”
Doorsamy says: “The line that sits with me and my team is that we need to live the business. Get out there and engage with the business. We attend business cycle meetings and are involved in strategy needs in terms of where to take the business. We engage at all levels of the organisation and take up all opportunities that arise.
“Our team is really accessible and thanks to new technology, we can also interact with other countries such as Botswana and Namibia, and assist human resources to get to our customers.”
No negatives
Doorsamy says they have just come out of a quarterly meeting where they told the entire organisation what human resources was doing and provided the opportunity to obtain feedback on engagement.
In such meetings a factory perspective is provided for blue-collar workers, who participate in various forums, including unions, equity and gender committees, and utilise various platforms to make these interactions successful.
“It is how we brand ourselves as part of the business; we have an enabling function, not a back-office position,” concurs Persad.
Swanepoel stresses that their job is as a strategic business partner, focused on health and corporate social responsibility, and that these elements bring them closer to the entire team. “Part of our philosophy is to continually stress that if someone asks a question, the answer is never a ‘no’. We encourage any response that does not involve a negative.”
“It is very important that overall employee wellbeing is emphasised,” continues Doorsamy. “We use an independent service provider, which provides a 24-hour service to all our employees and their families. This includes a 24-hour helpline for all aspects of employee wellbeing, encompassing more than just health, but other aspects such as legal issues and substance abuse — all of which is free to employees and their families.
“We monitor the feedback to determine the ‘temperature’ of our organisation. We also hold wellness days and clinics, social activities and awareness campaigns, using such platforms to address gender issues, for example, on Women’s Day. We always have a finger on the pulse, which really helps us to keep appraised and relevant. Employees see that we are here and they are not operating in a vacuum.
“We might be a multinational company, but when it comes to local issues, these are intertwined.”
Doorsamy described the 20-plus workshops held across the country to deal with issues around diversity, encouraging dignity and sensitivity, breaking down barriers and blind spots. They have also produced a video on understanding and dealing with racism.
“We are not afraid to take a topic by the horns and discuss and dissect with meaningful dialogue, instead of allowing perpetuation of misunderstanding and thought process. We also take gender empowerment very seriously across the globe.
“Finally, Sanofi’s commitment to health goes beyond providing medication, in part through our corporate responsibility actions and our dedication to make a real difference in the lives of people every day.
“In 2010, Sanofi invested €200 000 to build Ikhaya Lethu, a childcare centre in Rorkes Drift, which serves as a drop-in centre for vulnerable and orphaned children who are affected or infected by TB and HIV. Ikhaya Lethu caters for 175 children who come from families and communities with complex issues, and care ranges from addressing children’s day-to-day needs to their health, education, and safety before and after school.
She says that Sanofi employees are privately contributing to sustain the centre.