A pharma field force earns through territories, doctor calls and monthly targets. Here is how to run the people side so good representatives stay and territories do not sit empty.
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Share your requirementsA pharma sales and marketing team promotes medicines to doctors, chemists and hospitals through a field force of medical representatives, led by area, regional and zonal managers. Each representative has a territory, a call plan, a product basket and a monthly target. Marketing and product teams at head office plan campaigns, doctor engagement and training, and depend on the field to carry them out. Representatives work alone, travel daily and are judged by numbers they only partly control. Territories change, products move between teams and attrition is a standing fact of the business. See also HR for pharmaceuticals and life sciences.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
A representative leaves and the territory sits uncovered for weeks, so doctor relationships cool and sales slip.
Targets set from head office ignore local reality, so representatives with hard territories fall behind through no fault of theirs.
Rules shift each quarter, nobody fully understands them, and disputes about payouts follow.
The best representative becomes an area manager with no training in coaching, and the team suffers.
Calls, expenses and sales are tracked closely, but time to coach, listen and recognise is limited.
Representatives are trained on launch but refreshers are rare, and doctors notice who knows the product.
Experienced representatives get regular offers, and a good territory-holder can be gone within days of an offer.
Delayed or disputed claims irritate people who are spending their own money to do the job.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Performance Management; Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for pharmaceuticals and life sciences, not in general.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a pharma sales and marketing teams business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A named interim cover plan for every territory, with a target for how quickly a vacancy is filled.
What this coversHideA named interim cover plan for every territory, with a target for how quickly a vacancy is filled. The recruitment process supports a ready pipeline.
Targets based on territory potential and past data, explained in a short conversation, with a written incentive plan that stays stable through the year.
What this coversHideTargets based on territory potential and past data, explained in a short conversation, with a written incentive plan that stays stable through the year. The performance management and incentive design work shapes it.
Practical sessions on joint field visits, feedback and handling a weak quarter.
What this coversHidePractical sessions on joint field visits, feedback and handling a weak quarter. See the leadership and people management training.
A calendar of short refreshers on products, selling and communication.
What this coversHideA calendar of short refreshers on products, selling and communication. The sales and negotiation skills and learning and development work fit here.
A defined time to approve and pay expense and travel claims, with a simple way to raise a query.
What this coversHideA defined time to approve and pay expense and travel claims, with a simple way to raise a query. The payroll process management approach covers the flow.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Fair targets and a stable incentive plan that representatives can understand and trust.
A hiring pipeline that keeps territories from sitting empty.
Coaching skills for area managers who were promoted from the field.
A view of who leaves, from which territory and manager, and why.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in pharmaceuticals and life sciences, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why people leave pharma and life sciences roles, and how to ask about qualification, shifts, territory and quality culture in an exit conversation.
7 min readRead article
A review can only judge what was agreed beforehand. How to set expectations that are specific, written and revisited, so the review stops being a surprise.
5 min readRead article
Candidates who accept and never arrive are usually lost in the silence between offer and joining. What actually causes it, and a contact plan that closes the gap.
8 min readRead article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Set your own target based on how quickly sales fall off in your market, and keep an interim cover plan ready. A prepared candidate pipeline helps you meet it.
Base them on territory potential and recent results, explain how they were set and review them mid-year if conditions change. Fairness matters as much as the number.
Common reasons are targets, unclear incentives, a weak manager and a better offer elsewhere. Exit conversations by territory show which applies most in your case.
Coaching in the field, giving feedback, setting realistic goals and handling underperformance. Strong sellers do not automatically become strong coaches.
Set a clear policy, a fixed turnaround and a simple route for queries. Slow claims are a frequent source of resentment in field roles.
We would count vacant territories and how long each has been open, ask representatives to explain the incentive plan in their own words, and see what coaching area managers have received. Expense claim turnaround is often worth a look too. A natural first piece of work is a rule for territory coverage plus a clearer target method. Scope is then agreed in writing.
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