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In the first months of Paul Rupert’s work with BMS, he conducted a broad
diagnostic across all the BMS business units. His goal: finding places
where innovative flexibility might intersect with pressing business
problems.
A group of sales reps and their manager in the Field Sales Group of U.S.
Medicines identified job sharing as an option that offered part-time
conditions without requiring the costly redrawing of territories. They
also thought it might allow more creative staffing. At the time, though,
such change seemed unlikely.
BMS and R&C spent the next two
years creating the platform that would make job sharing in field sales
possible – briefing leadership teams across the divisions, developing a
powerful task force, creating guidelines and putting them online,
relentlessly training HR generalists and building online training tools.
These made flexibility visible, acceptable and viable at BMS.
The leadership of U.S. Meds decided to
pilot job sharing with 30 pairs of reps across the territories. The
participants were nearly all strong performers. Many were at risk of
leaving because they wanted part-time options. And all were looking for
better ways to work. The pilot proved highly successful.
In interviews after the pilot, managers and participants described some of
the solid outcomes from this initiative:
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