Medical sales executives continue to lead the way in the pay stakes, but how do they continue to defy remuneration odds?

A recent Channel 4 documentary exposed just how sensitive the issue of salary is in the workplace. Employees at a leading plumbing firm in London were asked, face-to-face, to reveal their salary to their colleagues. The outcome wasn’t pleasant. Employees working alongside each discovered they were, in some instances, paid tens of thousands of pounds less than the person working only a few feet away from them. Whilst employees’ pay was eventually brought in-line with their unsuspecting workmates, the moral of the film highlighted just how much people dislike being short-changed – especially in their wage packet. 
The Pf Company Perception, Motivation and Satisfaction Survey – now in its 11th year – again highlighted the importance of salary to those working within the medical sales industry. It’s of little surprise that in an era of austerity salary came out on top as the main motivating factor for respondents. While the significance of money is there for all to see, the satisfaction respondents feel when they open their wage slips is somewhat surprising – despite being paid well above UK average. Satisfaction ratings showed salary placed as the 13th out of 18 options.

Figures from the website Payscale.com show that the average salary for men in the UK is now a slightly more than £30,000. For women it’s around six thousand pound less. Short change when compared to figures from the Pf Survey where the median salary from men is £45,000 and women £40,000. Despite nearly all pharmaceutical companies announcing plans to tightening its belts, employees in the medical sales sector are clearly still extremely well paid.

Overall figures from the survey show that annual remuneration packages range from £11,000 up to a wallet-busting £107,000. The median salary for full-time workers travelling from job to job around their territories was £43,000. Even those on part-time hours earned a medium salary of £26,702 – with the highest earner working reduced hours taking home a cool 54k.

The going rate
A career in the medical sales industry pays. The median salary for respondents who have less than six months’ experience within the sector was £23,000 - see Figure 1. One individual began their career within the industry taking home £58,000 per year! The median salaries of those with additional years of experience continued to rise with those clocking up eight years or more earning an average of £45,000. 
Age also plays an important factor.  The median salaries of those aged 25 and under continue to rise to respondents aged between 45 and 54 years old. Individuals in that age bracket reported a median salary of £45,000, yet those aged beyond their 54th birthday saw their median annual wage fall by two thousand pound. With an ageing workforce, has the medical sales industry targeted this age group to make savings?
Patients may suffer as a result of the postcode lottery but it also seems that medical sales executives do as well – see Figure 2. Median salaries ranged from £42,125 in Scotland up to £47,000 in London. The south east, south west and Wales all clock up median salaries of £45,000 with the north east and Midlands/east slightly behind.

Individual roles
Pharma’s switch in methodology away from a traditional headcount approach to a key account model is reflected in the survey with the median salary for Key Account Managers being £10,500 more than that of a Primary Care Representative (£33,000). Primary and Secondary Care representatives reported a slightly better median salary at £38,880. However, that figure is almost doubled by the median salary of second-line managers at £74k. At the other end of the pay scale, nurse advisors reported the lowest median salary at 30k – as highlighted in Figure 3.

Although public sector workers may have had to endure pay freezes, the same can’t be said of medical sales executives. For the second year running respondents have again reported hearty pay rises – one lucky individual banked a £20,000 rise! Overall, the median salary increase was slightly more than a thousand pound. Key Account Managers reported £100 on top of that figure with second-line managers again enjoying the largest slice of the pie, after receiving a median rise of £2,778.

On top of generous salary increases, respondents also enjoyed bonuses the majority of workers from other sectors – banking aside – could only dream of. In total, the survey found that sales executives received a median bonus of three thousand pounds. The maximum bonus was £50,000. Key Account Managers saw their bonuses fall in line with the average median figure, primary and secondary care representatives were rewarded a thousand pound less than everybody else, and first-line and second-line managers again enjoying generous gratuity sums.

However, very much like salary, respondents were clearly unimpressed with their bonuses. In the satisfaction stakes, only share scheme finished behind bonus in the minds of respondents. It would seem, much like pharma’s shareholders, medical sales executives are a difficult bunch to please – despite enjoying above-inflation rewards.

AstraZeneca has been ordered to pay $250,000 to 124 women after a US court found they had been subjected to unfair pay discrimination.

The action resolved a lawsuit filed by the US Department of Labour in May 2010 alleging that AZ paid female sales specialists at its Philadelphia Business Center in Wayne, Pennsylvania, on average, $1,700 less than male counterparts.

Patricia A. Shiu, Director, The Department of Labour’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), says the department is now working closely with management to “make sure this does not happen again”.

The OFCCP conducted a compliance review of the Centre in 2002 and found that AZ had failed to meet its obligations as a federal contractor to ensure staff were paid fairly without regard to sex, race, colour, religion and origin.

AZ has now agreed to work with the OFCCP to complete a statistical analysis of the basic pay of 415 individuals employed on a full-time basis as a ‘primary care’ and ‘speciality care’ level III pharmaceutical sales specialist in several states.

“I am glad AstraZeneca finally has agreed to pay its employees what they've earned,” said Patricia A. Shiu.

With new paternity leave rules coming into force, is it time to change our attitudes to gender roles?

From April this year (2011), fathers will be allowed to take up to six months maternity leave if their partner chooses to return to work. This is a Labour policy that the Coalition Government has been keen to take on board, if not extend.

The pharmaceutical industry has not fared too well in the equality stakes of late. Bayer, for one, is currently facing a massive gender discrimination lawsuit in the US, with one of the claims being that female workers were overlooked for jobs or promotions due to their tendency to have babies. Indeed, the court even heard that one senior manager announced that he “needed to stop hiring women of reproductive age”! And other major pharma companies have been faced with similar accusations in the past.

The new legislation could go some way to truly equalising the working environment, meaning that men could be just as likely to take months off work as parental leave, but also that women in high-powered/ high-earning positions are able to return to work leaving her partner literally ‘holding the baby’.

So the changes are a victory for equality and will transform family life in the UK, right? Well, not exactly. For the legislation to have an impact, people need to take advantage of it, and that will require a major attitude shift. Ministers have predicted that there will be low uptake of the new paternity leave.

Pf website users too, are cynical of the impact the changes will have. In a recent poll, 64% of respondents agreed that paternity leave rights will have a positive effect, but felt that few fathers would be willing to take it. A positive 7% welcomed the changes as providing the option for mums to be able to return to work earlier, while a further 28% felt things should stay as they are.

So are we ready for an equal approach to parenting? Are we ‘modern’ enough? In Sweden, 16 months can be taken on almost full pay, yet two of these must be taken by the secondary parent. It seems that current attitudes to parental leave in Britain have become ingrained due to the fact that the man was traditionally the higher earner and the woman often wanted to spend the maximum time with her newborn. However, our ideas of gender-related parental roles are starting to shift, albeit slowly, and perhaps the new rules will help to ease the transition.

If even the Tories are backing the change, maybe it’s time to get a bit more ‘Scandinavian’ in our attitude to gender equality.

Details of the new paternity leave right are available here.

See my full article on the proposed changes.

Read more on gender discrimination in pharma.

Contact the author:

diana.spencer@healthpublishing.co.uk

@HSPDi

Six current and former female workers are suing Bayer for $100 million following alleged discrimination at its US unit.

The women claim they were denied fair pay and promotions and that pregnant employees were treated poorly.

Katherine Kimpel, the lawyer representing the women, says that “Bayer engages in systemic discrimination against its female employees”.

Bayer is the latest pharma company to face allegations against gender discrimination after Novartis recently lost a case filed by former female employees and was ordered to pay $175 million.

A spokeswoman from Bayer told the Wall Street Journal that the six women had previously filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before dropping those claims to pursue a lawsuit.

“Bayer denies the allegations of gender discrimination and will vigorously defend itself against these charges,” the spokeswoman said.

“Bayer will not comment further on pending litigation, other than to note that it is committed strongly to a policy of non-discrimination and equal treatment for all employees.”

Whether in the playground or the boardroom, the question of gender supremacy always causes heated debate. Using Pf’s Company Perception, Motivation and Satisfaction Survey, Iain Bate highlights some interesting differences between the sexes.

The recent cases in the US against two of the pharma industry’s major players has seen the ugly issue of gender discrimination dragged through the courts once again. Since the 1970s when the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act were introduced in the UK great strides have been made towards equality. However the US court cases have clearly shown that despite all the laws in place both here and across the pond gender discrimination is still alive and kicking. 
In the pharmaceutical industry it’s clear that women are fighting back this trend. A growing number of women now hold presidential or vice-presidential positions in various capacities in many high profile organisations. In the age of equality, this should come as no surprise. However, two main issues continue to bedevil the battle for a level playing field; does sexual equality extend to company pay structures? And, the age-old debate – who makes the better boss: man or woman?

Sex(ist) Machine
A study by UK recruitment firm www.ukjobs.net showed that two-thirds of women agreed that men make better bosses. Female managers being hormonal, talking behind employees’ backs and an inability to leave personal issues at home were all main factors in the conclusion. Yet in America it’s the other way round for Carol Smith, Senior Vice President and Chief Brand Officer for the Elle Group.
“Hands down women are better. There’s no contest,” she said in an interview with the New York Times. “In my experience, female bosses tend to be better managers, better advisers, mentors, rational thinkers.”     
This isn’t a view necessarily shared by Charlotte Rayner, Professor of Human Resource Management, Portsmouth Business School, who argues that both males and females boast attributes which contribute to the age-old argument.
“There’s no reason why men or women should be better bosses,” said Professor Rayner. “This is an area of ordinary human skill and competence and both genders should be able to perform just as well as each other. A man making a better boss than a woman is a matter of perception. Throughout all of history it’s often been the case that men have been profiled as the major leaders and it could be that we still perceive men as the archetype for those sorts of roles.
“This perception results very much from stereotyping which happens almost from day one where girls are dressed in pink and boys in blue. There’s very deep seated assumptions and stereotyping which goes on.”
While it may seem obvious that gender stereotyping involves males and females the reality may be that women are hindering the progress of other women in the workplace due to these long standing judgements.
“In the studies I’ve been involved in we continually look for gender differences,” Professor Raynor added. “We ask people what experiences they have had in the workplace. This includes gossip and rumour and we continually find no differences between males and females. But what might be happening, for example, is that when a woman boss talks behind somebody’s back it’s gossip, but when a man does the same thing it’s then rumour. From a male boss perceptive it could also be seen that he’s asserting his position and working through the politics. Whereas a woman might be seen to be undermining and gossiping and that all comes back to basic stereotyping. It’s exactly the same behaviour but what we do is label it differently.”

Payback
The main bone of gender contention relates to pay. The debate appears to plague every industry – and pharma is no exception. The Pf Company Perception, Motivation and Satisfaction Survey includes a detailed section on remuneration. As ever, the 2009/10 poll provides some interesting insights – not least to the gender debate. Completed by more than 1,200 employees from UK pharma sales, 53% of which were women, it revealed some interesting statistics when comparing individual (figure 1) and overall salaries (figure 2), and also motivational factors between men and women.
When the median salaries are scrutinised by gender, and combined across all the standard sales roles, the Survey reveals that the average median salaries for men in 2009/10 was £1,539 more than women. Only four years earlier the difference in median salaries was just £850. The latest Survey figure does however show an improvement of more than £1,000 from 2008/09.
Despite the existing gap Professor Raynor says salary divide could have more to do with men being more willing to ask their superiors for a wage increase rather than companies trying to scam females out of thousands of pounds each year.
“It’s quite often that men are more assertive in this area by often asking for pay rises,” she said. “But sometimes women are not pushing their own pay claims as much as they might. My advice to women in terms of pay would be to think like a man!
“Generally the pay gap is getting smaller. What has been very helpful around the country, and certainly in the private sector, is there are much better job descriptions being produced and better human resources processes. Companies are assessing what a job is worth and not what a person is. People are being much clearer that they’re paying for a job and not a person.”

Get on the good foot
The UK pharmaceutical industry remains an attractive one for women. Of the respondents in this year’s survey 70% who had less than six month’s experience in the industry were female. While this high number suggests a career in pharma is appealing to women, that fact that half of those with more than eight years of experience were also female confirms this.
In fact, despite the salary gap in certain roles, results from the Survey indicate that women are more satisfied with their annual wage than their male counterparts. More than half of women revealed they were happy with their wage packet at the end of the month compared with 46% of men. This continues an annual trend with the Pf Survey.

Papa’s got a brand new bag
Across all industries, data suggests that women still feel uneasy about stepping off the career ladder to start a family. But Professor Raynor says this unease at switching from a business woman with responsibilities to a housewife with children is not solely reserved for females. 
“We’re seeing more women deciding not to have children and taking the career route because they look around and see it’s difficult to combine career and children,” she continued. “Although I feel that men experience this as well. When children come along, their focus on why they’re at work starts to change. It’s very good to start to see paternity leave come in. In many ways what we’re talking about now could be an end to those stereotypes. Actually, males have a hard time too but we hardly ever talk about this.”
Although men might not suffer as much in the pay stakes as women do when children come along there are a number of decisions which can ease the process, especially for women. Those leaving a career to start a family are encouraged to set their priorities early; get the support needed from their family required to balance the long hours and added work load; to decide from the outset what is right for them personally and consider the implications in the long term.

I feel good
Professor Raynor says the equality divide which still exists today is still some way from being eradicated where work and pay is concerned. But the more women in positions of power the more likely it is they will break down the barriers and we’ll see the balance and fairness suggested in the soon to be implemented Equality Act 2010. 
“We are still a long way from gender equality that a lot of people would want,” she concludes. “For males it’s the balance between paternity rights and a career. For women it’s pay, maternity rights and a career. Things are changing though. Women in senior positions are seen as role models for other women working within the organisation. Other women look and say ‘if she can do it then so can I’.
“This also applies to people who take career breaks and who are still able to succeed. It would be very positive if we had more leeway for paternity leave and a positive attitude from society about a genuine openness about men and women switching the caring roles in the home.”
Although in the Survey both sexes agreed that salary was the main motivational factor (figure 3) at work, responses from women showed that work-life balance was more important than their relationship with their boss. A trend reversed in men. The link between relationship with manager and job security for men suggests that keeping the boss sweet in order to maintain in work during a period of recession is far more important than it is for women – who consider the balance between being at work and spending time with the family more important.  
Whether or not the age-old argument of who makes the better boss will ever be agreed, or whether true equality in the pay stakes will ever be resolved remains to be seen. However, as the motivational factors in the Pf Survey show, it’s still obvious that where work is concerned men come from Mars and women come from Venus.