Why pharma sales function has too few women?

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Getting a job straight out of college campus is something every young graduate aspires. Archana, identified by the first name, was hired through a campus selection by multinational drug giant GSK.

GSK, as a policy, is encouraging the recruitment of women at all levels, including sales. The company itself is headed by a female executive Emma Walmsley. This isn’t the case with many other pharmaceutical companies which have internalised a stereotype image that women are not suitable for front-end sales jobs that involves working at odd hours, mobility, and chasing stiff sales targets, leaving limited time to attend family.

But sales are considered as a core business function that traditionally gave pharma its leaders. That also explains why there are only a few women executives at the top echelons of Indian pharmaceutical companies, other than those who come from promoter families and first-generation entrepreneurs.

According to the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI),
pharma sales and marketing function, typically, comprises 60-80 percent of workforce and women represent about 5-6 percent of that.

Overcoming challenges

While Archana is elated about getting a job, she is nervous, too.

“So, my feeling on the first day of my job was a mix of fear, being unwanted from the customer (doctors), career insecurities, riding a scooter the whole day and so many other things, and, last, but not the least, in a group of 10-15 males , a single female. But I think the actual journey started from there," explained Archana.

Archana said she didn’t want to be seen as a lesser mortal.

“I asked for additional responsibilities from my manager to get control of the skills needed to be successful because talent and skills can't be decided based on gender," Archana said.

But there are perceptions about women at the workplace that she needed to overcome, says Archana.

“Peers have doubt about the calibre of women colleagues most of the time. That’s why women are not provided with equal opportunities. Stereotyping is there that women can’t do well in sales and cannot be good leaders because they cannot handle a team of male colleagues … women will have to prove themselves more than male counterparts … otherwise, their failures are directly linked to their gender and also male colleagues sometimes aren't mindful about using lewd remarks at workplace,” she said/

"I overcame challenges with my hard work and great connect with customers as well as knowing my brands better," she added.

Archana, with her grit and perseverance, rose up through the ranks and now became the Area Business Manager, leading her own team of medical representatives (MRs.

Women, even as leaders, too, are judged easily by male subordinates.

She advises female medical reps to be women of voice, enhance knowledge, and not to become critical of themselves, do personal branding, and not to others define you.

Pharma lags behind

OPPI data says that the average percentage of women in the workforce in most sectors in India is between 15 - 35 percent, while in the pharma industry, it is only 10 - 15 percent. It's even worse when it comes to women in senior leadership roles in the pharma sector. The workforce, in most sectors, is between 10 - 25 percent; in pharma, it is between 5 -10 percent only.

Multinational companies are little ahead of Indian companies in their efforts to promote gender diversity. Still, overall, the industry has to do a lot of catch-up on gender diversity.

“Healthcare has traditionally been an industry where women have had an even footing with men. This plays into our cultural perception of women being more nurturing, occupying the role of a caregiver," the spokesperson of OPPI said.

"While we welcome the specific changes on the policy front from the government, we think it’s important that the industry continues to make efforts to change this to have a level-playing field,” the spokesperson added.

Experts say creating an ecosystem and organisational policies such as facilitation of returnship to work, providing washrooms at locations of major distributors, sensitising frontline managers on gender inclusiveness, among others, will enable more women to sustain their jobs and rise up the corporate ladder in the pharma industry.