Recruitment in the New Workplace: Interview With Poppy King, Talent Specialist for Asia Pacific
Section Editor: Marisa Santos, PhD, MD, Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In keeping with this month’s theme, I had the opportunity to interview Poppy King, Team Sales Manager at Barrington James in Singapore, to talk about recruiting talent in the new workplace model. In her role, Poppy works to pair director-level talent in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), market access, and pharmaceutical consulting roles across Asia Pacific.
My interview examines how the pandemic has changed workplace models and recruitment practices around the world and explores how new collaborations, new technologies, and essential skill sets that employers are looking for impact hiring practices in the Asia Pacific region.
Value & Outcomes Spotlight: The COVID-19 epidemic posed numerous difficulties for the pharmaceutical sector but also gave rise to many advancements, particularly in the area of remote work. Fieldwork for HEOR research requires collaboration. What do you think about the new partnership strategies?
Poppy King: The health economics landscape has changed significantly in recent years. Increasingly, health economists are looking beyond traditional economic analysis to consider the social, political, and ethical aspects of healthcare. This shift has been spurred on by the move towards value-based healthcare, which takes into account both clinical and financial outcomes. Health economists are also incorporating new and emerging data sources, such as big data and artificial intelligence, to develop innovative models and insights. Additionally, the globalization of health economics has led to increased research collaboration and the emergence of global health economics networks. Finally, the rise of digital health has created new opportunities for health economics research, such as the study of health technology adoption and diffusion.
I believe the partnership strategies are designed to enable a more collaborative ecosystem between the pharmaceutical business and the payer, engaging all areas of the healthcare network in the local countries to demonstrate value and evidence efficacy—over the more traditionally focused access in a commercial sense—post COVID. Partnerships are an important part of the pharmaceutical industry in Singapore and Asia Pacific. Pharmaceutical companies partner with local research institutes, universities, and other organizations to develop innovative drugs, treatments, and medical technologies. In addition, they partner with other companies across the globe to share resources and leverage their expertise. These partnerships allow them to stay competitive in the global marketplace.
“Increasingly, health economists are looking beyond traditional economic analysis to consider the social, political, and ethical aspects of healthcare. Apps have enabled employers to easily track and manage the progress of their recruitment efforts, providing valuable insights into the effectiveness of their recruitment strategies.” — Poppy King
VOS: Can you discuss a few of the specific changes that you’ve seen over the past few years, and describe how social media and apps have affected hiring in the pharmaceutical industry?
PK: The rise of social media and apps has had a major impact on the pharmaceutical industry, allowing recruiters to reach a larger and more diverse audience more quickly and cost-effectively. Companies are now able to advertise job openings and promote their products and services to a broader range of potential customers and employees. Additionally, social media and apps have enabled recruiters to quickly source qualified candidates, enabling them to save time in the hiring process.
These platforms have allowed us to build a narrative and promote the branding backgrounds. Finally, apps have enabled employers to easily track and manage the progress of their recruitment efforts, providing valuable insights into the effectiveness of their recruitment strategies.
Previously for global or regionally focused hires, candidates would have to wait a significant amount of time between interviews to meet a key decision maker, largely due to geographical remit. With the apps and technology, meeting talent is being expedited
It’s important to understand that with every upside there is also a downside: increased speed and agility to apply at the click of the button also means a higher volume of applicants of which a large percentage is unsuitable This also increases the number of candidates clicking without reading a job profile properly, meaning a hiring that isn’t carefully scrutinized could result in a negative impact on a hiring manager’s time. Whether you use an internal or external recruitment specialist, the need for personal engagement is still vital and will never go away.
The last thing that is notable—particularly for Asia—is that product pipelines for talent and internal development opportunities in every Pharma & Life Sciences business is plentiful, meaning that there is always a huge lack of “push factor” to look externally for competitive opportunities. So, it is imperative that hiring managers and recruiters market their roles to align with the long-term goals and motivations for target candidates, which is key to making a successful and competent hire. Secondly, being proactive towards the passive talent market and playing on the “what’s in this role for me?” factors, such as larger scope, better pay, upgrade in job title, and most importantly, the meaningfulness of the product remains critically important.
VOS: What should we anticipate from the workplace environment for the next 3-5 years?
PK: The remote working model has most definitely benefited regions like Asia Pacific and has increased our ability to hire previously scarce mid-level HEOR skill sets by allowing candidates to work remotely. However, I do anticipate and have started to witness a shift back to a more hybrid 60% to 80% office-based model due to the increasing need for social and collaborative interactions and information sharing. Most importantly, being present and visible to key internal and external stakeholders has an impact on career advancement.
The HEOR and Partnerships mandate now requires invaluable in-person contact with the stakeholders on the ground, whether a client or internal stakeholder (such as general manager or commercial lead) in countries like China, Korea, Taiwan, or emerging markets where government contact is crucial to ensuring the pharmaceutical or device is meeting all aspects of the public health need. We are no longer an industry where endless modeling skills are enough—there needs to be an infinite stakeholder engagement capability, which is quite unique and rare in this region.
"I do anticipate and have started to witness a shift back to a more hybrid 60% to 80% office-based model due to the increasing need for social and collaborative interactions and information sharing." — Poppy King
VOS: How will HEOR work be done in the future?
PK: Speaking only for my knowledge in Asia Pacific, I see an increase in HEOR demand—not just from vendors but also from internal teams—as the top 10 companies are prioritizing the transition from an “access and pricing” strategy to more transformative “evidence and health economics and outcomes-based value” of product demonstration.
With the commercial activities moving towards a strong partnership with local healthcare ecosystems, HEOR work is likely to be more data-driven and evidence-based in the future. This will involve the use of predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to identify and analyze data from multiple sources. Additionally, HEOR work will become increasingly digital, with the use of cloud-based tools and platforms to store, analyze, and share data. From a career standpoint, HEOR professionals will likely focus more on outcomes research, patient-centered research, real-world data sources, and cost-effectiveness analysis to demonstrate the value of products to payers and other stakeholders.
VOS: In remote and hybrid models, how can we build leadership succession planning and recruit new employees?
PK: As an existing leader in a business or organizational perspective (whether remote, fully office-based, or hybrid settings), social interaction is the key to team development. By making the time to be visible within your organization, you can learn so much from hearing your colleagues in a nondirect interaction. Most importantly, the social capital of being present with your team—investing in interactive learning, delegating responsibilities to empower your staff, and sharing your management training and responsibilities while creating a psychological safe space to grow—will allow you to identify high-potential leaders from the outset and develop your teams’ strengths and weaknesses.
It’s also important to give your team the opportunity to train new members and develop their leadership style early with mentorships. New employees should be able to identify their career paths from day 1.
Again, speaking only from my knowledge and experience around needs in Asia Pacific, more needs to be done to bring entry-level development into the mid-management level. When hiring new employees, there is too much emphasis in the region on meeting all of the desired skill sets. The industry needs to develop people with potential and on-the-job training; however, due to the existing industry demand and workload, organizations need “plug and play” hires with experience, resulting in roles being left empty for 10-12 months or longer.
In addition, most of the market access and HEOR roles in the industry are still top-heavy, meaning that the roles are primarily occupied by very senior strategic-level people and not filled by people at the much-needed (specifically, in Asia) operational level. Because individual contributors don’t manage staff and cross-functional managers support other functions, there are no development structures for these roles—employees can’t move up the career ladder and there are no people below them to move into their roles. Therefore, the industry still relies on pharma’s top 10 device and healthcare consulting firms—organizations with a developed structure—to develop the talent pools from manager level upwards.
From consulting and vendor perspectives, they have a unique opportunity to bring more international talent into their Asia Pacific headquarters from developed and over-saturated regions such as Europe to train and develop local talent and inspire them to be HEOR and real-world evidence consultants.
VOS: Which cutting-edge technologies are combined to create a brand-new workplace?
PK: The future is looking towards artificial intelligence, which can be used to create more efficient workflows, automate mundane tasks, and access data quickly and accurately. Virtual conferencing and work platforms can be used to create an immersive work environment, allowing employees to interact with their environment in a more engaging way.
Longer-term technologies are looking at augmented reality to add digital elements to the physical workspace, allowing employees to visualize data and collaborate with each other in new ways, moving into wearables to track employee performance, allowing employers to gain insights into their performance and make necessary changes. It is an extremely futuristic forecast but ultimately where technology is taking us.
VOS: In light of all these developments, what qualities do recruiters in the HEOR field value?
PK: The primary skills have moved significantly away from pure play-modeling technical ability. The HEOR professional requires significant ability with stakeholder engagement and must be able to demonstrate their value, which includes having the credentials and experience in the health technology assessment marketplace when looking for roes in Asia Pacific.
VOS: How is global hiring currently going and what are the difficulties you’re facing?
PK: Global hiring is becoming increasingly popular as organizations become more interconnected and not restricted by locality. Companies are able to diversify their talent pools and access the best talent from around the world. I recently built a health economics and market access team that had people based in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and as far away as New Zealand.
However, global hiring can also bring some challenges. The main difficulties include navigating legal and regulatory requirements; recruiting across different time zones and languages; managing cultural differences; and providing the necessary support and training. Additionally, there can be challenges in establishing reliable remote working processes and managing remote teams effectively.
VOS: Can you discuss the importance of soft skills in the HEOR field?
PK: Engagement ability is the #1 skill that is increasingly crucial to demonstrate in interviews. Hiring managers are also looking for strong emotional intelligence, alongside the technical skills we mentioned before. On both the industry side and in healthcare consulting, managing clients and stakeholders means that you can demonstrate the value as an enabling function effectively and perform well across all areas of your engagement chain.
Health economics is an extremely technical field. So, the unique ability to combine presentation connectivity and emotional intelligence with the highly technical modeling and research skills will be in high demand and may be difficult to find.
"Engagement ability is the #1 skill set that increasingly crucial to demonstrate in interviews. Hiring managers are also looking for strong emotional intelligence."— Poppy King
VOS: What are the anticipated trends for recruitment for 2023?
PK: We have started to see a strong demand for evidence-focused transformations from global to affiliate countries with more focus on real-world data capabilities. More and more, the priority is bringing evidence-based strategies into the local and medical affairs functions, and the commercial role being transformed in the healthcare and patient partnership. A strong focus for all multinational and top 10 pharma companies is without a doubt: partnerships, evidence, advocacy, public health, and preventive care. So, commercial activities have to focus on end-to-end engagement through the healthcare and patient ecosystems.
The more traditional health economics, market access, and pricing positions around building regional strategies and commercial launches are likely to be a growing hiring trend in diagnostics, biotech, and devices.
