Dr Reddy’s to hire 1,300 people braving recession; to recruit more women staff

India’s leading generic drug maker Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd has announced its plans to hire 1,300 employees in various positions this year, despite recessionary trends that threatens to impact across the industries including pharma.

Dr Reddy’s targets to fill at least one third of the total new recruitments with women..

Dr Reddy’s decision to recruit with a focus on women candidates comes in the wake of Pfizer Inc’s recent announcement in Dubai on Sunday to find ways to promote more females to leadership roles, as the world’s largest drug maker seeks to sell more medicines to women in developing countries.

Putting more women into management positions could help Pfizer better market its medicines to women, who in some countries are the main healthcare decision makers, stated Susan Silverman, head of Pfizer’s Latin America division.

In the pharmaceutical industry almost 90% of executives are male, according to industry surveys..

Pfizer chief executive officer Jeffrey Kindler has named four women to the company’s 10-person executive leadership team in the past three years.

Pfizer wants to improve management opportunities for women outside of the company’s New York headquarters, in Asia, Africa, West Asia and Latin America, Ms Silverman stated in an agency report.

Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s also plans to have the majority of the recruitments from college campuses

Last year, Dr Reddy’s recruited 1,500 people. The total headcount now stands at 11,000. The rate of attrition had also come down to 12 per cent from 18 per cent during last year.

Also, Dr Reddy’s claims to be the company from India which recruited the largest number of students from campuses last year.

“In fact, we have made the largest campus recruitment this year — 350 students have been picked up from premier institutions,” Mr Prabir Kumar Jha, Senior Vice-President and Global Head of Human Resources, Dr Reddy’s quoted as saying at its Leadership Academy.

Good talent will always be in demand and recession would not impact its hiring plans, Mr Jha stated.

Dr Reddy’s has also eased the general administrative control on the employees by over 80  per cent, facilitating speedy clearance of leaves/reimbursements by imposing a good amount of trust in them.

Dr Reddy’s has set up a leadership academy in a two acre plot in its sprawling Bachupally campus near Hyderabad to take up a range of leadership promotion/learning activities for the employees.

The idea behind constructing such an academy utilising Rs 20 crore with world class infrastructure was to prepare our employees to achieve the target of making Dr Reddy’s a $3 billion company by FY2013, according to Mr Jha.

The Rs 6,944 crore Dr Reddy’s (FY ‘09) spends about Rs 4-5 crore on employee-learning activities every year.

Established in 1984, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is an emerging global pharmaceutical company. Dr. Reddy’s has three core businesses: Pharmaceutical Services and Active Ingredients, Global Generics and Proprietary Products. Their products are marketed globally, with a focus on India, US, UK, Germany and Russia.