Bob Ingram, Help we need you!

Discussion in 'GlaxoSmithKline' started by Anonymous, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:43 AM.

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  1. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Bob Ingram, help we need you!

    As I sit here today, I don’t recognize the company I work for. I have worked here 19 years. What in the hell has happened to this once great company? Where did it go?
    My God, what would Bob Ingram think of the company we’ve now become? We desperately need leadership like we once had. If there was ever a time we needed REAL leadership, it now.

    I have worked in the pharmaceutical industry for nearly 26 years. I started with GlaxoWellcome in 1995. I remember when I loved working for this company. It wasn’t that long ago. I used to be so proud of the company and products I represented. Over the years I have been paid very well and in return GlaxoWellcome (& GSK) have received an honest days work from me. It felt good to get out of bed and go to work. I felt sorry for my friends who worked in the industry but didn’t have the privilege of working at GlaxoWellcome. I was GlaxoWellcome’s best recruiter. I encouraged 3 friends to come to work at GlaxoWellcome. I’ve worked hard the past 26 years. During that time, I developed wonderful relationships with my customers and made many friends. I knew what was expected of me and I went to work everyday and did my job, mostly because I loved what I did and I had the inner drive to be successful. I was a salesman and I loved it. I was competitive and driven to be at the top of both my District and Region. I’ve won Presidents Club & Winners Circle and taken several wonderful trips with my spouse thanks to GlaxoWellcome (& GSK).

    I’m sad I don’t work for that company anymore. It’s gone. Ka-Pooooof , just like that it disappeared around 2010-11. Don’t misunderstand, I still work for GSK, just not the same company I used to work for.

    I understand GSK had to sign a CIA. I understand things had to change. I’m not smart enough to know all the details but it’s my understanding GSK was very close to losing its ability to do business with the US Gov’t. That meant we’d go out of business. We were required to sign a CIA and “set out plans to evolve the way we sell and market our products to healthcare professionals to further align the company’s activities with the interest of patients.” BOOM, then it happened. Patient First happened. What we’ve created and are currently doing is so far from putting the Patient First it’s unbelievable. Seriously, tell me what I’m currently doing that is helping patients more than what I was doing before Patient Fist was implemented.
    How am I currently putting the Patient 1st? Are you serious GSK? Really? The previous 22 years I’d been putting the patient 1st. What I’m currently doing since you shoved Patient First down my throat is anything but.

    How can these people look at us with a straight face and tell us this is good for patients and us? Please GSK, don’t throw a shit pie in my face and tell me it’s chocolate. What you’ve managed to do in a very short few years, whether you meant to or not, is create the worst cooperate culture in the pharmaceutical industry. I’m now embarrassed to work for this once great organization. I really am. That’s hard to say and it pisses me off to say it. The people that sold this company on Patient 1st and our current selling model, Customer Engagement Framework should never, ever be allowed to work in Corporate America again. And the people that decided it was good for the organization and stupid enough to implement it, should never, ever be allowed to work in the pharmaceutical industry again. Hell, they shouldn’t be allow to run my granddaughters lemonade stand.

    GSK, when you took sales numbers out of the equation, did you know you’d create the kind of monster you’ve created? I’m telling you as GOD is my witness, if you don’t get this monster back in it’s cage, it’s going to eat us from the inside out.

    The current model is a cancer that needs excised. It’s a weight so heavy around your sales reps neck that it’s drowning us. I’m drowning in studying, taking assessments & simulations, worrying about taking tests & simulations, trying to check boxes on a COT I don’t understand, KPI’s, Territory Franchise Impact Tools, Visual Control Trackers (Green is Good!), Weekly Visual Control Calls, Precision Planning Tools, Franchise Owners Business Manuals, Call Effectiveness Trackers, ASMART Planning Tools, Territory & Customer Routing Tools, The Tracker that Tracks The Tracker, and on and F@cking on. Jesus H Christ, you people are F@CKING ruining this company. FOR GOD SAKE, STOP! Really, I mean it. You’re killing, NO, I mean YOU HAVE KILLED this company and it’s people. When you took sales numbers out of the equation, did you plan on de-incentivizing half your sales force? When you decided to required these ridiculous assessments & simulations, did you play on creating a culture of lying and cheating amongst your sales force and management? Now, because my sales don’t matter, you have me completing spreadsheets & trackers that are so ridiculously time consuming, so unrelated to helping patients, so unrelated to driving sales, so unrelated to customer satisfaction, so unrelated to anything I’ve ever done in the previous 22 years, it’s taken my incentive to get out the door and call on the customers & friends I once enjoyed calling on. Hey GSK, you know what I haven’t done in nearly four years? I haven’t been to a meeting where we talked and strategized about the message we were going to share with the doctor about our products. I haven’t been to a meeting in four years where we shared best practices, tore apart a PI looking for pearls to share with customers. Nope, you’ve been too busy rolling out new spreadsheets and trackers to track the things I was doing the previous 22 years on a single, one page business plan due once a year. How’s your new model been workin’ for ya? I think we all know.

    I want out bad. I can’t stand it here. I’m currently looking for a new company to work for. I hope I find something soon. I’m miserable here. So is everyone I talk to. I know I’ll find something. I was foolish to pass up a job opportunity about 18mo ago. Can you believe I held out for more money? I was greedy and thought I needed a pay raise to leave. What in the hell was I thinking? Hell, I’d take a pay cut in a heartbeat to leave today. I wouldn’t encourage my worst enemy to work here in this environment. I’ll survive, but it’s miserable. I’ll keep doing my job every day and GSK will continue to get an honest days work from me. I just don’t enjoy it anymore.
     

  2. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Oh my god someone with an almost identical career as mine and has put into words EXACTLY how I am feeling about GSK. Please Bob come back and save us from hell.
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I couldn't have said this any better. Well done! What's happened here is a travesty! I'm looking too and I pray everyday that I can get out of GSK. I know I will but I share the same loss that you do. When I look at what they have us doing sometimes all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. It's really unbelievable. Time to move on.
     
  4. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Ditto man! Call me a gray hair too 16 years with GSK and you are so right. Thanks for your honesty and integrity.
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I joined in late '91, feel the same. God Bless Bob, and God Rest Charlie Sanders.
     
  6. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    very good post. Interesting they enacted patient first to keep the REPS from selling OFF LABEL...when it was MANAGEMENT who was selling OFF LABEL. It was a REP who blew the WHISTLE. THEY are punishing US for THEIR mistakes!
     
  7. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Wow, my hat is off for you for taking the time and sincerety to write what you wrote. Whats more, I feel exactly as you do and so does everyone else. I have been here longer than you and you realy nailed it in your writing. Before the SK merger I had NEVER EVER AND I MEAN NEVER EVER, heard anyone say anything bad about Glaxo Inc. Now, it is just the opposite. You take a stupid ass test on BA and CE which has nothing to do with your job. Unless you are cheating with a group, you will screw it up and there goes your bonus. To make matters worse you never see your grade, you never see the correct way to answer the question, and you never will. So much for transparency, eh? So after screwing up the test that is absolutely assanine, off you go to work. Do you realy think I am motivated? Why should I work hard and make money for my FFL and regional Veep? They will get a nice bonus and you get the shaft!!!!
     
  8. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

  9. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    As a 17 year veteran US rep I regularly troll CF boards for info and insight, hoping to pick up some pearls by wading through a lot of foolishness which comes from both reps and HR PR jerks. YOU, my friend, have taken the time to eloquently express what I have felt for a long time. YOU, our friend, have ambitiously collected your thoughts into a single piece which I will print out and keep.
    My optimism left last year - gone - but I still held out hope. Optimism occurs when one feels that some control of a situation is still attainable. POOF - gone, for the reasons you outlined plus severely diminished office access (I too have close MD friends with whom I do activities on my personal time, and thank GSK for having provided me the opportunity to get to know them). Hope can still be present, but it requires a feeling that events totally outside of one's control will break favorably in your direction. Hope has faded badly. I don't think Bob Ingram could save us. I'm GW Heritage too, but I remain skeptical as to what kind of upper management culture he created which ultimately led to our current situation, and I tend to think that the real solution is going to require something that hasn't been done before.
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    excellent post, I think 99.9% of US employees feel exactly the same way!! The company did not realize that all of this bullshit they are trying to sell us would create a cohesion amongst its sales force that has never been stronger.
     
  11. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    wasn't he the one for the merger and "change" ?
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Dear OP, I read Cafe Pharma but have never posted until now. Your post is so spot on to my feelings as well. I don't know Bob Ingram as I'm SK heritage but I'm thinking almost anyone could rescue us and it couldn't be worse! There's really nothing else I could add to this great post but wanted to add one more persons agreement to yours; especially since your post made Bob Fiddamans twitter. People need to see that Patient First is nothing about the patient. It's a sham to make everyone think GSK has changed. BUT WE HAVENT! Its just a sham! Thank you for the post!
     
  13. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Two things really hurt this organization...SKB culture of a "tier mentality" and A. Witty. Too immature for such a large task. Who pays the price? The people at the bottom..the reps. What is even more crazy is that the reps are the face of the company but are treated like crap.


    Hate to say it, but this culture is not going away. Stick it out if you are able or find another job. It's tough out there. I've got a family, a mortgage and bills. Do I leave after I've invested so much time and effort? Or do I stick it out, pray not to be let go and provide for the family? GSK, what have you done today to make you feel proud?
     
  14. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Omg what a great post! So accurately written to capture all of our thoughts and feelings. Deirdre has no guts to just admit this was a wrong move to make and many great reps have left because of her PF child she gave birth to. Now gsk sells the only bright spot in the company making money.... The oncology division. Talking about really feeling appreciated. Gsk basically said we don't want you anymore after making our lives miserable with these PF years. Well to be honest with gsk leadership...... I have been gone for a long time already. I just pray that Novartis really wants sales reps and not test takers.
     
  15. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    SKB had tiers......you knew where you stood.......everyone knew your rank......it was bad to be in the middle, and worse to be on the bottom......but everyone knew where they stood ! What's wrong with that ? You people are a bunch of pathetic whiners....quit and stop complaining ! SKB kicked butt !
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    We are paying the price for individuals we are no longer with GSK. A lot of companies have put CIA's in place. The PF stuff was something that DC offered to the DOJ. The state settlements are a piece of the original settlement but at a state level. There is no additional extension of PF as it officially didn't start until this year. Now we are paying for the sins of those who took a golden parachute a left us all in a bad spot.

    Now with that being said we have gone to the extremes. I took a recertification that I past but I know for certain that I missed 2 very important questions. Now nothing has been said about those answers being wrong. I could be telling customers information that isn't correct and if I didn't take the time to look up the correct answers I could be giving out wrong information. Now that's really PF isn't it.

    The COT's are a complete joke. U could demonstrate every behavior and your mgr could not give you credit for all of them cause they would get in trouble. Mgr's get COTs checked based on how they complete our FCR's. This makes the process corrupt in the worst way. The process becomes more about them than the rep who is out with our customers every day. I like my mgr a lot. They have a terrible job right now. There's no way I would become a mgr now. Nothing we are doing is about the patient at the senior leadership level.

    Our budget was recently cut due to the company's poor performance. Unless someone with string leadership takes over the US we are destined to failure. The writing is on the wall. Sales are in the tank. I don't care anymore if I get paid on sales goals. However being paid on how I take a test is a joke. Do u know any other professional who is incentivized on how they test? The cheating is rampant, everyone is getting tve answers mostly right. There can't be that big of a difference. The scary thing to me as a patient is that reps never find out what they miss. We are in the healthcare business. This had got to an issue.

    I want GSK to succeed. I've always been proud of my job. Now I hate going to work. It's also caused a lot of friction at home cause I'm stressed all the time. Such an unhealthy atmosphere. Change needs to happen fast or the ship is going down faster than we'd like.
     
  17. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    This man wanted the merger and pushed for it , I am told ! Why get him back ?????
     
  18. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    To the guy complaining about "tier mentality" you don't know what you are talking about - did you ever rank in the top 10% of sales for any business you have been in is my question to you? No need to pick on smithkline vs glaxo side either. At the end of the day no matter what division you are or what company you came from we are the same pool of shit together now. PF testing and COT measurements are a total farce - horrible way to motivate a sales organization and the proof is in the great sales results this organization is seeing today. DC and the rest should be run out! - Can we all just agree to that? Piece out.
     
  19. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Gotta correct myself fast before I am hazed - "Peace out" not piece. :)
     
  20. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    THIS IS INDEED A VERY GUT WRENCHING, HONEST SENTIMENT BY EVERY FIELD REP IN THIS COMPANY. What baffles me is how long will it continue? All pharma companies have a CIA, but we're the first to implement a farce called Patient First that has absolutely NOTHING to do with patients. It's GSK first ... it's their agenda - ways built under the guise that our incentive comp is good for patients, explain to me exactly how is it good for the patients?