The Case for Partnership Over Headcount in Pharma Resourcing

In pharmaceutical laboratories, resourcing is a recurring issue (and headache). You might need a validation engineer, lab-specific IT support, a CSV (computer system validation) specialist, or Quality Assurance support, but the traditional recruitment approach is both slow and risky.

Recruitment cycles take time, as does onboarding. And there are a number of risks associated with increasing headcount, including retention rates and adding resources for a specific project that may not be required once that project is complete.

But there is another issue with the traditional recruitment approach – it is highly transactional. You get the resource, pay the recruitment agency a not-insubstantial fee, and that’s essentially it. Everything else is up to you, i.e., onboarding, training, ramp-up time, etc. And if the person leaves, you start again from the beginning, as there is practically zero continuity.

In this blog, we are going to outline an alternative partnership model. It’s an approach we operate with our pharmaceutical industry clients, and it is highly effective.

Overview of the Pharmaceutical Resourcing Partnership Model

Rather than recruiting and adding to your headcount, we provide you with the resources that you need. This means:

• Westbourne absorbs the sourcing risk and the risk of the person not working out. In other words, the model is based on shared outcomes, i.e., Westbourne only succeeds when you get the resources you need.
• Westbourne is fully accountable for the engineer’s performance throughout the engagement. This differs from the recruitment agency approach where accountability ends once the placement is made.
• You have flexibility to scale up or down according to the needs of your business. You can do this without the HR / legal processes and issues that come with hired employees.

The Differentiators

Our partnership model differentiates Westbourne from recruitment agencies. In addition, there are three significant areas that differentiate us from other IT consultancies.:

• Access to pharma-lab-specific talent
• Speed to competency
• Option to hire directly

Each area is explained in more detail in the following sections.

Access to Pharma Lab-Specific Talent

We have been partnering with pharmaceutical industry clients in the allocation of specialist resources for over 20 years:

• We have deep pipelines into European and Asian talent pools in the specialist areas needed in pharmaceutical laboratories – validation, CSV, QA/QC (quality control), CQV (commissioning, qualification, and validation), LIMS (laboratory information management systems), QMS (quality management systems), IT specialists with lab knowledge, etc.
• Our relocation and support processes are well established and highly refined, from visas and work permits to housing and onboarding logistics.

Speed to Competency

As our processes are repeatable and proven, our speed-to-competency timelines are short. We are not in the business of simply providing you with an engineering, validation, or quality resource. Instead, resources will arrive fully up to speed on GxP environment expectations and requirements.

We can do this as we have strong training processes that include our unique Pharma Lab Apprenticeship program where we take highly skilled IT engineers and train them in pharma lab competencies.

Option to Hire Directly

Many IT consultancies have clauses in their contracts that prevent their customers from directly hiring any resources that have been provided. We take a different approach at Westbourne as we understand the enhanced importance of retaining and further developing a resource that has built up experience in your organization, knowledge of your processes, and relationships with your team.

Therefore, we commonly structure our contracts so there are no barriers to directly hiring resources that we provide if you choose to do so. There is typically an agreed period of time before this can be implemented, but it gives you a unique option to see and work with skilled resources before making final decisions.

Hire vs Partnership

The partnership model means you get the resources you need in a significantly shorter time period than recruiting directly. There are also lower risks and greater flexibility.

For pharmaceutical organizations, especially pharma lab functions, the question shouldn’t be whether or not you hire someone. The question should be: should you own the risk alone or partner with a specialist provider like Westbourne, who successfully does this every day with a proven track record.

If resourcing is an issue you are thinking about at the moment, we’d welcome a conversation.

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