聞いてみなければ解らない！人物インタビューシリーズ 第59回
『Interview with Michelle Lu, HR Executive Director of Allergan (China) by CIIC Enterprise Club』2019/4/8
From Sales Representative to Head of Human Resources in a Multinational Pharmaceutical Enterprise
-Interview with Michelle Lu, HR Executive Director of Allergan (China)
Allergan (China)Michelle Lu, HR Executive Director
Michelle joined Johnson & Johnson as a university graduate with major in pharmacy. Starting her career as a front-line sales representative, Michelle has successfully served as sales manager, product manager and national sales director. During the time she made a bold decision to give up her promising job in a famous foreign company to pursue MBA study in the National University of Singapore. After graduation, Michelle chose to join Johnson & Johnson Hong Kong as a product manager. Then she worked in Johnson & Johnson China's marketing and sales positions and then was appointed sales director. She was later transferred to human resources department of Johnson & Johnson China. In 2015, Michelle joined Novartis as HR director for South China and Hong Kong. She joined Allergan China as HR Executive Director in 2017 till now.
A Vigorous and Innovative Pharmaceutical Enterprise
Although registered in Dublin, Ireland, Allergan’s operational headquarter is in the United States. It has 14 manufacturing sites with main products covering seven categories---central nervous system, eye care, medical aesthetics, gastroenterology, women's health, urology and anti-infective therapeutic. “This is the 10th anniversary of Allergan’s entry into China market and we are still very young." Michelle smiled.
Allergan entered China market in 2009 with headquarter in Shanghai. Up to now, Allergan has a local professional team of more than 800 people, with business network across 50 cities in 28 provinces nationwide. Allergan works with private medical aesthetics institutions with professional qualifications as well as public hospitals across China to provide medical aesthetics products, while the eye care and neurological products are supplied to major public hospitals. Among the medical aesthetics products, Botox® and Juvederm® are industry-leading and best-in-class products on the market. In 2018, Allergan China ranked the third in terms of business performance among Allergan global markets, next only to the United States and Canada. Allergan China is expected to achieve a 30% growth with the goal to overtake Canada this year.
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Speaking of the rapid growth in the China market, Michelle said the Allergan brand is now known to more and more consumers than it was 10 years ago. In the traditional perception, pharmaceutical companies are believed to be only focusing on research, development and manufacturing. “Allergan is not a traditional pharmaceutical company," Michelle said, "We hope to promote Allergan's most professional medical aesthetics concepts and knowledge to our Chinese consumers."
Allergan cooperated with Ali Health to launch a medical aesthetics consumer education digital platform for China market in 2018. Through O2O experience (combining both online and offline), consumers will have easier access to the professional medical aesthetics consulting services and diversified diagnosis and treatment solutions. Last year, Allergan participated in the "Double Eleventh" shopping carnival and made her debut with a remarkable record, marking turnover of more than 10 million in the first three hours.
In 2018, Allergan established the world’s first Allergan Innovation Center through strategic cooperation with Chengdu Government, to commit to medical aesthetics talents training and enhanced experience for medical aesthetics consumers.
In recent years, many initiatives on healthcare policy innovation were taken by the government to encourage the innovation, development and introduction of medicine. In the Two Sessions just concluded last March, it is explicitly stated in the 2019 government's work task that "Promote the accelerated development of emerging industries. Foster new industrial clusters, including next-generation information technology, high-end equipment, biological medicine, new energy automobile and new materials, to boost the digital economy. Allergan will introduce more new products in the future, thanks to the favorable policy of the Chinese government.
Employees are the best ambassadors for employer branding
Allergan’s branding is inseparable from an excellent workforce. Looking back two years ago, the company relied almost 100% on headhunting to acquire talents. As a result, employees generally did not have a strong sense of belonging, and the company often encountered the situation where their core employees being hunted by competitors. One year ago, Allergan set out to establish employer branding by strengthening internal referral system and offering a wide range of diversified benefits programs to employees. In order to help employees have better work-life balance, starting from 2019, all Allergan employees are entitled to at least 15 days annual leaves each year, with maximum of 28 days, and additional 1 day off on company anniversary day, Christmas, as well as 2 new company holidays polled by employees, which are "Double Eleventh" and "Children’s Day". Moreover, employees can apply to work from home for two days every month. Anyone who have completed their job can get off work as early as 4pm every Friday. "We hope that our employees can take good care of their families while working hard", said Michelle. With the implementation of a series of humanized initiatives, the company has witnessed a significant increase in the proportion of internal referrals from 10% to over 45%, which is full reflection of employees’ recognition towards their employer.
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On the annual party held in early 2019, Allergan launched an internal product experience project for the first time. Any employee who has passed probation can try company's own products for free and choose either slim package or beauty package. The project aims to give employees the chance to experience the magic effect of the company's products, which gained great popularity among employees.
Michelle believes that inspired and motivated employees are the best ambassadors of the employer branding and company image. A good employer branding is created by both employer and employees.
Breaking boundaries for rapid growth of talents
When being asked the requirements that Allergan is looking for on employees, Michelle said having bachelor's degree is the bottom requirement. Among the current employees, many have medical backgrounds. In some departments, such as marketing, 70-80% of the employees have overseas study experience or job rotation experience, and most of the positions require strong English abilities. Instead of looking for experienced people only in the past, Allergan now welcomes young people with different professional backgrounds to join. Fast-learning is the most important quality of all.
To create greater environment to develop overall capability for all employees, Michelle led the HR team and spent two years integrating all kinds of advanced learning philosophies to design and establish a brand-new Allergan Talent Development System. Allergan attaches great importance to the training of front-line employees and high-potential employees. In addition to classroom training, Allergan also provides such projects as "eagle" program and "Arise" program that focus on training employees to grow from individual to team leader. Meanwhile, Allergan has a mentor system where senior management from key departments of the company meet and communicate regularly with high-potential employees to provide guidance. Every year, many managerial personnel are sent to CEIBS for mini-MBA study. The reason for choosing CEIBS is that CEIBS students have different industrial background. In such a cross-industry environment, Allergan believes that their employees will learn from and get inspired by other industries. Moreover, Allergan provides overseas training opportunities for employees every year. Last year, five employees were sent to other countries around the world, most of whom held higher positions than before. Some even based in China to manage global business projects.
These talents development programs are conducted mainly in the form of projects. Employees from different departments team up to work on a project, which is indeed the most effective way to train people, said Michelle. When a person works in the same field for a long time, his/her vision is often limited. That’s why we need to get out of the comfort zone and give full play to all the possible potentials that we are not even aware of. For example, some sales may not speak very good English, but they participated in the project and successfully completed the challenge by making presentation fluently in English. Such bold talent strategy generates the perfect environment for the rapid growth of talents. Michelle joked that "the bottom decides the head", which means that real talents should not rest on their laurels but have the courage to break the status quo and welcome greater challenges to truly broaden their horizons and ways of thinking.
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In the recent two years, another feature of Allergan's workforce is that it is getting younger. The majority of employees were born in the 1980s, and those born in the 1990s account for 16%. "I discover that the 90s generation is really a group of young people with new ideas and high level of education." said Michelle, "They are very independent and fond of teamwork, with a lack of self-reflection, but they always have wonderful creativity and strong action power. With proper cultivation and guidance, I believe they will gradually grow into the middle management in the company." To drive the enthusiasm of the young employees, Allergan started a 90s Club which allows them to be the leader of the club and participate in some projects in the company. For example, they organized color run event, edited company's digital platform and official WeChat account "Al Beauty Club", and often initiated interesting activities such as WeChat vote for all employees to take part in." I really enjoy spending time with young people and hear what they have to say. Every three months I attend their gatherings and give guidance and support to their projects where necessary." Michelle smiled.
Messages to Young people: Daring to think, Striving hard, Reaching potentials
These are a few words from Michelle to all young people. According to Michelle, young people must dare to think and dream big, while striving hard and making enough efforts to seize all the opportunities that this wonderful era has given and reach their full potentials.
China’s development in the next decade will be unmeasurable. Michelle lamented that China will soon become the second world center with the largest number of corporate headquarters. More and more companies are locating their headquarters in China, and many local companies in emerging industries base their global headquarter directly in Shanghai. Young people of this era are the lucky generation, for as long as they work hard enough, they will have a lot of opportunities to become global leaders in the future without having to go abroad. In the meantime, foreign talents will be attracted to China for job rotation and training, making great efforts to learn Chinese. It is widely believed that with the growing openness of China, the future of young people is full of possibilities and they must strive for it.
【CIIC Impression】Elegant and intellectual manner, attentive and friendly eyes, informative speech, medical background and international vision, rich experience in sales, marketing and human resources...there are so many words to describe Michelle. In the interview, we were deeply impressed by her vision, courage and charisma. The rapid development of Allergan China in recent years proves to us that Michelle's talent strategy plays a decisive role in the development of the company. Since the establishment of Allergan China, CIIC is proud to support Allergan along the way and witness its development over the past decade. We welcome and look forward to Michelle giving more guidance and sharing on the platform of CIIC Enterprise Club in the future.
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