Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

A novel approach

by Personnel Today 1 Jul 2001
by Personnel Today 1 Jul 2001

Margaret
Morgan, vice-president of communications at global healthcare company Merial,
took part in a leadership programme tailored by Henley Management College. She
shares her insights into what it achieved  

Merial
is the world’s leading animal health company, with more than 6,500 employees in
30 countries. Best known for the discovery and sale of the world’s top-selling
animal health product, the anti-parasitic Ivomec, and the leading flea and tick
treatment for dogs and cats, Frontline, we also pioneered the first vaccine for
foot-and-mouth disease and still lead in that market. Other areas in which we
are market leaders include equine ulcers, rabies treatment and animal pain
control.

The
company is planning for future growth in sectors such as BSE, which are
constantly presenting our industry with new challenges, and to consolidate its
global position. Our executive chairman, Alan Reade, has introduced a programme
to decentralise our structure so the benefits of our global organisation can be
felt locally. At the same time we are looking to develop a more comprehensive
career structure for our staff.

Putting
both of these developments together, the need arose for a forum to bring
executives together from across the global organisation to share best practice
and develop cross-functional, multidisciplinary and strategic ideas about the
future direction of the business.

Our
vision starts with the statement that Merial is an innovation-driven leader in
the provision of products and solutions which enhance the health, wellbeing and
performance of animals. Implementing and making this fit together with our
values (which include focusing on the customer, respecting our people and
acting with integrity) was key to this process. Equally vital is the need to
involve people from across the organisation – our key operational areas, as
well as support functions such as research and development, manufacturing,
communications and HR. Merial worked with the UK’s Henley Management College,
well known for its ability to create practical solutions for business issues,
to put the foundations of a programme into practice to create such a forum. Our
key aims at this stage were to provide focus to senior managers, define their
ideas about leadership and find innovative ways of thinking.  

One
of Henley’s main suggestions in response was that for the programme to be truly
effective, the forum participants needed to communicate with each other to
determine the key issues to be discussed before any formal meeting of the forum
took place. The challenge was then to stimulate dialogue between 50 leaders
spread throughout the world, in different time zones and speaking different
languages. Exploiting the new technology it has introduced to its global MBA
programmes, Henley set up a dedicated Web site and invited us to share our
personal views about the issues the company is facing and how we might tackle
them.

Leading
up to the first forum meeting at Henley in September last year, the
participants used a dedicated Internet chatroom to discuss issues including
cross-cultural strategic leadership, team planning, management techniques,
globalisation and customer service. I found the experience novel – we’d never
participated in this kind of closed environment before and it produced a great deal
of interesting discussion.

Henley
programme directors were closely monitoring the site and used our ideas to draw
up the programme for the three-day leadership forum. Carefully selected
external speakers tackled the key issues chosen for discussion – issues
including customers, leadership and market orientation. These were interspersed
with working groups in which we were able to focus on individual issues and our
specific concerns. We came away from three days in the English countryside
satisfied at having been able to discuss our new roles within the organisation,
what we are now doing differently, how do we view those roles and how can we
contribute to future development.

We
are now planning further meetings and the on-line chatroom has been moved on to
a dedicated part of our own intranet to act as a precursor and follow-up to
future meetings. The leadership forum is now to be used to look at different
topics across all our functions and has an important role to play as we move
towards the future.

Eric
Meunier, our head of HR, is a member of the management committee of the company
– our board. Of course, he also attends the forum and appreciates the benefits
it brings to the company. "I’m delighted with the concept, which fits well
with our strategic planning concept," he comments.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Further
information

For
more details held on courses at Henley Management College, call + 44 (0) 1491
571 454, or check out www.henleymc.ac.uk

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Independent Insurance to axe 1,000 jobs
next post
Massive HR system overhaul for NHS

You may also like

Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders receive 400% pay rise

4 Jul 2025

FCA to extend misconduct rules beyond banks

2 Jul 2025

‘Decisive action’ needed to boost workers’ pensions

2 Jul 2025

Business leaders’ drop in confidence impacts headcount

2 Jul 2025

Why we need to rethink soft skills in...

1 Jul 2025

Five misconceptions about hiring refugees

20 Jun 2025

Forward features list 2025 – submitting content to...

23 Nov 2024

Features list 2021 – submitting content to Personnel...

1 Sep 2020

Large firms have no plans to bring all...

26 Aug 2020

A typical work-from-home lunch: crisps

24 Aug 2020

  • Empowering working parents and productivity during the summer holidays SPONSORED | Businesses play a...Read more
  • AI is here. Your workforce should be ready. SPONSORED | From content creation...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+