Business Services Industry

A people strategy that spans the globe: Human resources is key to the success of a company that is "only world famous in Denmark"

Workforce, June, 2003 by Carroll Lachnit

You're Novo Nordisk, a Danish company that does life-saving work--the treatment of diabetes, which the World Health Organization estimates will affect 300 million people worldwide by 2025. You are a pioneer in corporate social responsibility, rating company performance not just in bottom-line terms but also in its social and environmental impact and achievements. You already have 18,000 employees in 68 countries. So there's no need to worry about your ability to attract and retain employees, right?

Actually, there is, says Peter Moller, Novo Nordisk's vice president, business and organization. "Novo Nordisk is only world famous in Denmark. We have to make an extra effort to be able to attract the best employees."

Novo Nordisk also has ambitious growth plans--to double the number of employees between 2000 and 2010. And, Moller says, "we are a small company compared to our competitors, so outside Denmark, we have to be better to attract people."

Attracting and retaining the best people is one part of the company's five-pronged "People Strategy;' which also targets customer relations, development of people, equal opportunities, and the creation of a winning culture. Novo Nordisk identified the five focus areas several years ago, using an analysis of how the company would develop, Moller says. "We identified the five focus areas, and determined they would be relevant for all units in the company, regardless of function or geography."

The People Strategy, along with an annual strategic-planning process and the guiding principles of Novo Nordisk's "Way of Management," directs all of the company's human resources strategies, whether they're being executed in India, Denmark, or the United States.

"Our challenge is to develop a global mind-set and at the same time hold on to our values and culture," Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Rebien Sorensen writes in an introduction to a guide to the People Strategy. Because a unified human resources strategy is key to helping Novo Nordisk succeed in the world marketplace, the company is the 2003 Optimas winner for Global Outlook.

When Moller and his colleague Lars Almblom Jorgensen, Novo Nordisk's executive vice president and chief of staffs, came to NewYork in March to accept the Optimas Award, Moller still seemed a little abashed at the fact that the company had won. "In all fairness," Moller had said a few months earlier, during the research process for the Optimas Awards, "the five focus areas we've identified as relevant for all the business units are not rocket science?' But, he added, they're developed and pursued differently at Novo Nordisk, with top-to-bottom attention and follow-through.

Novo Nordisk arms each of the business units with a guide for making the People Strategy work. It spells out the five focus areas. It explains that year's target for each focus point, such as what percentage of employees expect to meet with a diabetes patient and talk to him about the illness and its impact, which is a cornerstone of the company's customer-relations focus. It shows how Novo Nordisk employees achieved goals in the focus areas. It also provides a "toolbox" for how the unit can meet its targets.

HR employees set the targets, and a draft goes up to the Novo Nordisk management committee. When the targets are approved, they're integrated into the company's balanced scorecard. Performance toward the targets of the People Strategy is factored into top management's compensation.

The emphasis on those targets appears to be effective. In 2002, 80 percent of Novo Nordisk's employees had a conversation with a person who has diabetes. Nirmal Kumar Jain, a regulatory affairs executive in India, said his meeting with a diabetes patient "made me feel that I should start contributing by whatever means possible."