CoverStory
To ensure a successful implementation, Bausch Health’s training team:
Invested time in clearly communicating to all stakeholders why we were making these changes, consistently reinforcing the value of the new approach.
Consolidated our training and coaching capabilities into one platform, reducing complexity for the field and increasing adoption rates.
Committed to data-driven decision-making, regularly analyzing competency gaps, search patterns and engagement metrics to prioritize resources.
Focused on empowering our managers with direct and easy access to performance data and learning resources, enabling them to take greater ownership of team development.
The Bausch Health training team needed to evolve to develop relevant and timely pullthrough strategies that provided better insights into the performance of our 1,400-person field team. At the core, we believed it required bridging the gap between training and coaching initiatives.
The sales performance consultancy PDG notes that companies identify coaching as the No. 1 activity to most likely impact job performance. Furthermore, they found that organizations with dynamic sales coaching programs receive 28% higher win rates.
All training leaders in life sciences face the challenge of demonstrating how our training and coaching interventions directly impact field performance. What follows is our story of how we resolved this challenge and enhanced organizational performance around learning, mastery and autonomy.
As a result, our leaders had more insight into how to improve training and coaching programs, and our reps became more confident and competent in face-to-face healthcare provider (HCP) interactions.
Like many organizations, we struggled with disconnected systems and manual processes that did not allow for an integrated “bigpicture” view of our training and pull-through impact. The existing tools used for field coaching reports (FCRs), while functional, lacked the deep coaching data we required to gain insights. And since our training content also lived on a separate system, it was difficult to develop timely and relevant pull-through strategies post-launch.
We shared our interest in a simplified, streamlined approach to curriculum with a single layer of reporting with ACTO. Together, we partnered to pursue our long-term strategic vision of developing customized training and coaching initiatives across all our business units to increase adoption, retention and performance.
With a training team of only 13 supporting hundreds of new hires annually, this ecosystem needed to be more efficient and automated. So, we took steps to bring everything together as a “onestop shop” for stakeholders —an ecosystem that:
Provides details of how individuals were progressing, and what training they completed.
Supplies trainers with insight into what content was driving engagement, or what content reps were searching for most frequently.
Simplifies the field rep experience, so they can easily search for information on their mobile phones.
Offers us insight on how to build more customized learning programs and content.
Empowers sales managers to help reps with continuous improvement by developing customized FCRs to monitor activity and performance.
Consolidates training and content on one platform.
Our transformation began with implementing a management dashboard that offered immediate visibility into team performance metrics. This included completion rates, quiz scores, competency gaps across teams and regions, content search patterns and time-to-completion metrics.
The impact was immediate. We were able to move reporting away from our small-scale training team to managers, so they could access their own insights and drive actions. This shift in accountability also was valuable for new hire development because managers became immediately engaged from day one in driving development, allowing our training team to focus on more strategic initiatives.
One of our most significant discoveries was the power of search analytics. From May to October 2024, we saw between 4,000 and 9,000 searches on our platform, representing a fundamental shift in how field teams access information.
Previously, representatives would typically only search for required new hire training or prework. Sales reps now are actively searching for content to support their daily needs.
Furthermore, this data transformed how we prioritize content development. When we received different perspectives from sales and marketing about training needs, we could reference objective evidence of what representatives were searching for in the field. This allowed us to make more informed decisions about resource allocation and investments in content development.
The most impactful innovation? By connecting training to coaching on a single platform, managers can assign relevant training content directly from FCRs. After identifying skill gaps during ride-alongs, managers can immediately act by assigning specific learning interventions tied to those competencies. This connected approach has made managers and representatives true partners in the sales development process. FCRs are now seen as an active tool for growth, versus a check-the-box exercise.
Instead of seeing the same skill being worked on for six consecutive FCRs with no progress, we are seeing faster improvement due to direct accountability and follow-up. This has contributed to recent successes with product launches, with some brands hitting all-time highs in total prescriptions.
Based on our experience, organizations looking to better connect their training and coaching efforts should:
Start with clear accountability measures and empower managers with easy-to-access sales rep data and FCRs.
Use analytics to inform curriculum development and resource allocation.
Make learning easily accessible and searchable for field teams so that it can be easily integrated into their daily workflow.
Connect coaching observations directly to relevant training interventions.
Focus on creating collaborative partnerships rather than compliance exercises.
Taking an integrated approach to training and coaching created more efficient development processes while also demonstrating clearer impact on field performance. The key is leveraging technology to remove manual barriers and siloes while maintaining focus on the ultimate goal: building more competent and confident sales professionals through learning, mastery and autonomy.
The Bausch Health training team remains focused on making coaching a truly collaborative experience so that representatives look forward to managers’ observations and feedback because they know it will lead to actionable development steps and make them stronger in the field. We continue to evolve the approach, with plans to integrate sales performance data to demonstrate even clearer connections between learning interventions and business results.
The journey to bridge training and coaching wasn’t always easy, but the impact on field performance made it worthwhile. As we continue to evolve our approach, Bausch Health remains committed to finding new ways to drive performance through integrated training and coaching experiences.
Peter Dzwonczyk is executive director, sales force excellence at Bausch Health. Email him at Peter.Dzwonczyk@bauschhealth.com or connect through linkedin.com/in/peter-dzwonczyk-b4a44416/.
