The client is the Australian arm of a world leading, research-based life sciences company which operates in more than 100 countries and employs more than 100,000 people. GSK consists of two operating groups—GSK Pharmaceuticals and GSK Consumer Healthcare—who research, develop, and manufacture medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products.
In Australia GSK invests more than $35 million each year in research and development, contributes significantly to export revenue through pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare exports, and is active in GSK’s $580 million investment in global/community health improvement initiatives. The Asia Pacific revenue is $2.96 billion.
The Situation
There was a sense that the business was growing complacent. The Managing Director wanted to “return a positive performance management pressure to the business.”
The Approach
We used a combination of the following:
- The High Performance Environmental Structure (HPES) Diagnostic to identify the next two moves
- Senior Leadership Development Programs tailored towards key leaders to build their performance plans for their businesses
- General HPES education for the wider leadership team (80 leaders)
In the words of Managing Director Paul Lirette:
“There has been a significant attitudinal and behavioral change from increasing the potency of the exposure mechanisms.” Annual reviews used to come around and it didn’t really matter as long as one does the norm. There were often no consequences for performance and there was acceptance of substandard performance. “The solution is to have clarity about the consequences for failure and the employee needs to expect appropriate consequences. This increases accountability. We see this in the executive team being more engaged.”
