Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim, one of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies, has been expanding rapidly in China since it entered the market in 1994. Last September, the company inaugurated the 70 million euro (US$95 million) expansion of its plant and research facilities in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Park.

The expansion will make the Zhangjiang plant one of Boehringer Ingelheim’s most important sites in the Asia-Pacific region, with the number of employees there rising to 350 and production capacity to triple by 2018. Boehringer Ingelheim operates globally with 140 affiliates and more than 46,000 employees. It was founded in 1885 and remains a family owned company.

The company was recently named by the Netherlands-based Top Employers Institute as one of the 2014 Top Employers in China.

Shanghai Daily sat down with Kevin Kang, vice president of human resources for Boehringer Ingelheim China, to discuss the challenges of recruiting and managing personnel in China.

What’s the key to becoming a successful employer who can attract top talent in China?

 There’s no single factor. But one of our strengths is the importance we place on our employees. We value their contribution to the company and reward them with well-designed pay and benefits systems and individual development programs.

Could you be more specific about the kinds of employee pay and benefits you offer?

 We provide competitive salaries and we design salary packages according to employee performance, competencies and contributions to the company as well as market practice.

We adjust benefit packages to reflect the new trends in the market. Currently, more than two-thirds of our employees were born after the 80s and that requires us to design more flexible benefits and offer more choices to employees.

For example, we offer employees wealth management plans to help build their personal assets. We also offer travel packages, family medical insurance, fitness club memberships and cash coupons for online shopping. In a word, we are willing to consider anything that improves the life quality for our employees.

We also have flexible working hours to take into consideration the traffic gridlock in big cities like Shanghai. Employees have the flexibility to choose to work from home two days every month, and where business work conditions allowing, we may increase the number of days in the future.

How do you bridge the gap between younger-generation employees and an older executive team? How do you ensure that low-echelon employees have their voices heard in the executive suite?

 There is a “generation gap” but we deal with it. Frankly, it all boils down to good communications. We have to ensure good lateral communications as well as communications up and down the line.

We hold two family day events each year, inviting employees to bring family members to the workplace to see how we work and what we do. On that day, we also provide recreational and fun activities.

Our “young eagle program” was launched three years ago and each year we select a group of kids of our employees to spend a week visiting our headquarters in Germany.

What underpins success as a pharmaceutical company?

 Competitive products, innovation capabilities,  effective distribution channels, outstanding leadership and leaders, and talent are all very important factors. However, I think talent is the most important factor and one of the biggest challenges for us.

Whether we’re able to deliver our products relies very much on our talent and our talent pipeline, and that’s important for a drug company to succeed in such a fast-changing and competitive market as China.

What makes you stand out from other drug firms and how do you attract and retain top talent?

 The growth we now enjoy in China is unprecedented, one of the fastest in the industry, and that gives us an advantage over other well-established companies. 

China is currently our fourth-largest market after the US, Japan and Germany, and it will become third very soon.

We had only over 1,000 employees here several years ago, and now we have more than 3,000. That figure could increase dramatically in the next few years.

Trust between our German headquarters and our Chinese business units, trust between our China management team and entry-level staff members and trust among employees of all levels are our core value. These factors have put us in a good and unique position in the competitive market of recruitment.

We want to make the company a great place to work, where people are inspired to be their best, and to make a difference in people’s lives. We aspire to become the industry “Employer of Choice” and to be the most preferred pharmaceutical brand in China; we offer a portfolio of the most trusted products with a very strong product pipeline — to be the “Brand of Choice”. And we also agree to a high standard working attitude.

How does the job of human resources in pharmaceuticals differ from other industries you’ve worked in?

 The biggest difference I’ve seen is the growth momentum of the pharmaceutical industry. We’ve risen very quickly in terms of our sales contribution to the parent company. While our headquarters in Germany send expats to work here, we are sending our staff overseas to work and to improve their expertise in global markets. We now have nine Chinese employees working in overseas divisions. However, we’re running short of employees to be sent overseas because many of them prefer to stay here, where business is booming. I haven’t seen that in other industries where I’ve worked before.

Do you work with headhunting companies and, if so, how do you ensure they follow your rules?

 We work very closely with talent search firms, and we have prudent assessment and qualification process to make sure their selection decisions are in line with our principles.

At the same time, we also invite our employees to recommend fellow professionals they know who might like to work for our company. We have a referral reward mechanism to the employees who made successful referrals.

In light of several scandals, some pharmaceutical companies are scraping prescription targets and canceling bonuses linked directly to sales targets. How are you dealing with this new trend?

 Compliance has no compromise in our company. We have a compliance functional team that sets rules, policies and practices. The scandals didn’t have negative impacts on our business. We continuously improve our pay system and practice according to labor law and requirements, market practice and conditions, and that’s an important reason why we’re able to retain top talent.