Finalist
EMAcademy
Summary of work
With great work comes great responsibility: the responsibility to maintain high quality during significant growth of existing accounts and onboarding new team members as efficiently as possible.
Faced with a sizeable new account, high client expectations and a significant intake of staff, we had to find a way to onboard talents quickly and cultivate a proactive ’can do’ attitude. So, we created a novel, comprehensive, unique training programme so they could grow, improve and flourish. Trainees received resources from subject-matter experts, guidance from key internal stakeholders and assignments to complete. At the end they were evaluated on their application of scientific information, adherence to process and creative thinking. And it worked!
We onboarded 15 team members within two months, instead of six. It encouraged trainees to become more competent and confident quickly with three of seven trainees receiving promotions within 12 months, instead of 24. Furthermore, giving them creative freedom led to new ideas, sold to client, resulting in positive business outcomes.
Therefore, overall this training programme developed content knowledge (new therapy area, account, brands, client processes), skills (critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and presentation skills) and brought about real and sustained change (changes in attitude, behaviour, staff promotions and sales).
Judges’ comments
Excerpta Medica’s entry showed clear objectives and outcomes. This well executed programme enabled new starters to gain scientific valuable knowledge and can clearly be replicated.
