Employer of choice

For Pfizer Phils. president and country manager Rey Gerardo Bacarro, the corporate motto, "Life is our life’s work", is lived everyday. The motto looks at two environments – the world outside which Pfizer wants to improve through its products and the world inside which is made up of employees who have lives outside of the workplace.

"More than just inspiring words on company posters, our vision has served as our guidepost in the programs and initiatives we have undertaken throughout the past year to achieve something extraordinary," said Bacarro.

Pfizer Phils. was recently named as one of the "Best Employers of the Year 2001" by Hewitt Associates, the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Asian Wall Street Journal.

The Hewitt Survey was the largest people management study to be conducted in Asia, covering more than 355 companies and 92,000 employees in 10 countries. The survey looked at two factors. One was alignments or the consistency between the human resources programs and the business needs of companies. The other was engagements, which measured the extent to which employees are committed to the company.

The alignment score was based on the responses by human resources and the country manager to separate questionnaires. The engagements score was based on the responses of employees to an employee opinion survey.

Dealing with the union

One of the unique employee practices at Pfizer is the importance management gives to the union in vision exercises and in implementing decisions. For example, it is the union which determines the performance-based salary increases for union members.

"We are guided by our value of respect for people so we’ve always been very open with the union as we are with all employees," said Bacarro. "Everyone in the management team is involved in union relations – the country manager, the human resources managers, the pharmaceutical and sales directors."

Bacarro regularly talks to the union officers regarding business issues, making sure that they are aware of the big picture.

"We give them the good news and the bad news. When we had to close our manufacturing facilities, we talked to the union immediately after we were told of the decision to cease plant operations. Now that the union is largely composed of our field force, we practice the same openness," Bacarro said.

"We share with them general industry data on compensation so they can better understand our perspective, especially during CBA (collective bargaining agreement) negotiations. We also conduct focus group discussions with small groups of employees whenever there are issues that crop up. What we do is work with the employees to solve small problems before they grow into unmanageable issues that have to be settled on the negotiating table," said human resources director Marian Lleander.

Compensation

Although Pfizer employees are competitively paid – even non-supervisory, non-union staff receive performance-based salary increases – it is not the only factor behind the company being chosen as an employer of choice.

"Compensation alone would not be able to generate the commitment towards achieving goals that our employees have shown," said Lleander. "The programs we have that show our concern for employees, our open door policy and the way we communicate with them would be as important, if not more important, in building employee commitment."

The regional award was given at a most crucial time in Pfizer’s history – the merger with Warner Lambert that made it the biggest pharmaceutical firm worldwide and one of the top three locally.

"Even during the very busy period of the merger, a group of senior manager and employee representatives established a vision and successfully engaged colleagues to focus on and work for the vision as a team. When the merger was formally communicated, our team decided that the systems and practices of the new organization would not be Pfizer or Warner Lambert but the best practices culled internally and externally," said Bacarro.

To address employees’ uncertainties and fears, programs for and constant communication about the status of the merger talks were prioritized. A number of initiatives that would facilitate the integration of both companies were also implemented.

"We conducted a ’day one’ meeting for all employees, an office tour where office-based employees could meet their counterparts and interact informally with them and a series of team building sessions. We had monthly meetings with the country manager so that employees would know what was happening to the new organization. These enabled everyone to move beyond their Warner Lambert or Pfizer affiliation and really work toward being one organization," said Lleander.

During the first months after the merger, merger-related harmonization programs put in place includes best practices in compensation, benefits, financial security and operation systems and recognition of early wins through small celebrations. Pfizer also produced a regular newsletter solely for the purpose of keeping employees abreast with the goings-on.

For Pfizer Phils. employees, life is indeed is their life’s work.