Shilin Wang, PharmaNet/i3, San Diego, USA
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PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
SETTING UP AND MANAGING A
STATISTICAL PROGRAMMING TEAM IN
CHINA FOR A US BASED GLOBAL CRO
COMPANY
ABSTRACT
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
With recent years of CRO industry outsourcing
booming, China has become one of the hottest
destinations in the world. Setting up the first office as
well as the Statistical Programming team from scratch
is a big task, managing it to make it work effectively
with multiple offices across different geographical
locations and time zones becomes even more
challenging. The author shares her experiences and
discusses the topics on how to achieve these goals.
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INTRODUCTION
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
Our company is a US based CRO company with over 30
offices across the globe and more than 6000 employees
(Our parent company inVentive Health has over 13,000
employees in 40 countries). With several acquisitions
recently, it becomes one of the major players in the
industry. As the business started shifting towards Asia
Pacific, our strategic goal is to make our footprint in the
Asia Pacific region, in which China is becoming one of the
most important markets. With over 12 years working
experience in the industry and deep understanding of the
Chinese culture, I was sent from the headquarters as an
expatriate to establish the China office, which our first
choice was in Shanghai. The initial goal is to set up the
office, recruit the team, and manage the team to work
remotely with other teams located across multiple regions
on multiple projects. The projects are from both local and
global.
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RECRUITING AND HIRING
Requisition: requests for hiring multiple Statistical
Programmer positions at different levels are submitted,
it requires the approval from the upper management
 Standard: as a global CRO, we employee the same
recruiting standard for the same position across the
globe. Technical skills and English skills are the two
most important aspects we are evaluating on because
successful completion of high quality works is built
upon solid technical skills and good communications
among all the team members
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PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
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RECRUITING AND HIRING

PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
Screening process and skill sets tested: we follow the standard
recruiting procedure, which is resume selection phone
screening  on site interview
Technical skills including SAS programming, CDISC standards,
experiences on CRO/pharmaceutical/biotech industries, industry
standards, medical terminologies, clinical trial methodologies;
English skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing;
Soft skills including team work, project management, leading a
team, quality awareness, problem solving, decision making, time
stress management, customer service awareness and so on.
We do have minimum requirements for degree qualification
which is B.S degree, but M.S degree is preferred.
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RECRUITING AND HIRING

PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
Offer: once the qualified candidates have been
identified, offer letters that contain job title, salary
and benefit information will be sent out. Upon
discussion and acceptance of the offers, official
hiring dates will be determined and hiring packages
will be sent to the candidates
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ON BOARDING AND TRAINING

PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012

On-boarding:
we have a very detailed checklist for
managers and new employees to follow on on-boarding and
training, the list covers a wide range of topics including
orientation, IT, HR, Principles, Ethics and Integrity,
Departments,
CDISC,
project/programming/technical,
SOPs, etc., most of the training materials are available from
the internal resources. Each item on the checklist has a due
day which usually within the first month of on-boarding.
Start working: on the completion of the first months training,
new hires started working on projects while they continue to
receive trainings.
They usually start working with
programmers who are already familiar with our standards,
as they progress and gain more experiences with our
standards, they become independent and may take a lead
role
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MANAGING AND RETAINING
MANAGING
 Local culture awareness: culture awareness is playing
an import role in forming and strengthening team spirit,
and demonstrating respect. It needs to be paid
attention to daily communications and ways of
managing the team.
 Teamwork:
we advocate teamwork throughout the
project, each member brings out his or her talent to the
group. As a manager, identifying each member’s
strength and weakness is a constant task, prioritizing
projects and optimizing resource allocation is a key to
good jobs done. Teamwork is also a good practice to
improve the entire group as a whole
1.
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
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MANAGING AND RETAINING

PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
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Communication: encourage all members to openly and
honestly speak their thoughts, come up with
recommendations and express their concerns. We have
both regular group meetings and one-on-one meetings
to exchange ideas on technical issues, career path
planning, continuous training and any issues should
they come up
Multiple time zone management: managers and lead
programmers should take full control of the project in
terms of meeting deadlines and internal milestones.
Planning ahead of schedule to ensure situations like
different holiday patterns won’t disrupt the progress of
projects. Sometimes people are required to be flexible
on working hours to meet some special or urgent
requests.
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MANAGING AND RETAINING

PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
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Continuous training: We provide group training as well
as individual training upon their needs. We also provide
opportunities for programmers to attend external
trainings and conferences,
industry activities and
events whenever being budgeted.
90 day performance review/interim review and annual
performance review: 90 days after the employment,
with the proper training and working on actual projects,
new hires are expected to reach a certain level on
overall skills. The review is conducted using a
combination of self-evaluation, peer reviews and
manager’s review.
A one-on-one meeting will be
scheduled with the new hire, and the expectations and
goals will be adjusted accordingly based on the result of
the review
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MANAGING AND RETAINING
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
2. RETAINING
 CRO industry in China is a relatively new but has been
developing rapidly in recent years, so local qualified
talents are the resource quite sought after. As a result,
more frequent than average job-hopping makes it a big
challenge to retain employees, especially good
employees
 Building up career path:
from the employees’
perspective, what is more important than their salary is
their career outlook, help them vision themselves in 5
years, 10 years and what they could achieve. Talk with
them about the industry trend and how they can fit into
it. Share with them the experiences on how to adjust to
the ever increasingly changing environment
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MANAGING AND RETAINING
Help them in planning how they would progress in
the corporate ladder, building up not only technical
skills, but also managerial skills and leadership
 Setting up short term clear and achievable goals so
they can feel strongly about their progress
 Progressively delegate more important roles as
they become more and more confident about their
work, promotions will naturally follow when time is
ready
 Apart from good compensation packages, we have
regular employee recognition and reward programs
that demonstrating the great appreciation from the
company
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PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
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CONCLUSION
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
Using established global standards with deep
understanding of the local culture and market in
recruiting, on-boarding, training, managing and
retaining is a key to successfully set up a statistical
programming team and a new office in China.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
Name: Shilin Wang
Address: 4225 Executive Square Suite 800
City, State ZIP: La Jolla, CA 92037
Phone: (858)337-6227(USA), 13917479893(China)
E-mail: ShiWang@pharmanet-i3.com
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QUESTIONS?
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
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Thank you
PharmaSUG China 1st Conference, 2012
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