Keeping up With Change: Successful Capability Building for Pharma

In the pharma sector, one constant is the quick pace of change. In this blog, we take a look at capability building for pharma and some of the ways to ensure you can upskill your L&D team.

Raising the capability of L&D teams in the pharma industry is key to dealing with the sector’s rapid rate of change.

Staff, who are agile and can provide the kind of learning and performance support needed by professionals and clients, play a major role in ensuring the long-term success of organisations.

Yet even among the top learning companies from all sectors, only half carry out audits of the skills of their L&D team against the capabilities required ^[1].

Capability building for pharma is a challenge, and here at LEO Learning we know that the organisations who thrive will do so because they can identify and skilfully create the right blend of learning technology capability.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which this takes place.

Breaking down complexities through capability building for pharma

The world of pharma learning is becoming more complex all the time. This is partly down to:

• Evolving healthcare systems
• Changing access to emerging markets
• Shifting patient needs and demographics
• Advances in medical technology

Creating learning that allows people to build their knowledge in the right areas and adapt to this constantly evolving landscape can be tricky.

One of the main differentiators between learning that lands and less effective approaches is smart learning design.

With a mass of information out there, it’s vital to pare individual learning down to a succinct summary of what a person needs to perform in their role.

That’s where capability building for pharma comes in. Instilling core skills such as effective script writing and the ability to create engaging visual and interactive content makes all the difference.

Creating training scenarios that connect with people

For example, you might decide an interactive business simulation would be a great way to help your learners understand the decision-making process and the importance of assembling evidence rigorously at an early stage of product development.

In order to engage people, such a simulation needs to look realistic and be scripted in a way that feels genuine to learners and their everyday roles.

When your L&D team knows how to do this to a high standard, your training programmes become much more relatable and effective, and your completion rates will improve commensurately.

This can also be a game-changer in turning compliance training from a box-ticking chore to a useful and relevant proposition. Our clients have seen how this directly results in:

• Improved knowledge
• Enhanced skills and understanding
• Lasting behaviour shifts
• Embedding a culture of learning and compliance

Using video techniques gives learners real insights

Video-based content, such as virtual reality and 360-degree video, can be an excellent way to explain to your learners how a medical device or drug works in the human body.

Many organisations aren’t aware of how powerfully animations and simulations can detail the mechanism of action of specific drugs and how they react within cells.

Knowing how to use these approaches effectively also gives your team the power to place learners at the centre of the action, which isn’t easily achieved in the real world.

For example, you can allow them to speak with a client or patient, or explore a clean room in a manufacturing facility.

They can also follow a molecule on its path to a disease point in a body, giving learners a deep anatomical understanding of how products work.

Capability building for pharma: measuring the results

Having developed the capabilities of your team, how can you effectively measure the impact your training programmes are having?

Whether you want to track individual progress, be able to pick out gaps in knowledge or produce compelling reports you can present to the board, a strong measurement strategy is essential.

This has traditionally been an overlooked area. Organisations are just beginning to build a broad picture of how their training programmes are helping to achieve business objectives, but the situation is changing rapidly.

As technology and analytics tools provide unprecedented opportunities to measure the business impact of learning, our Measurement Foundations Workshops are helping L&D teams in the pharma sector to prove the impact of their endeavours.

The most successful pharma organisations know that investing in L&D capability equips them with a solid knowledge base and foundation to drive success.

From effective learning design to precise use of learning data, having the skills to foster continuous learning is one way to guarantee your organisation stays ahead of the curve.

^{[1] Towards Maturity, ‘Building Capability, A key work stream in the Towards Maturity Framework’}