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Interview
Complaints ≠ annoyance
Complaints = opportunities to improve
With 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical segment, Jamil Zeitune, who has already worked at Prodome (joint venture Ache and MSD) and Schering do Brasil, is at the moment the Ombudsman for Bayer in Brazil.
Majored as Ombudsman in 2005 from ABO (Ombudsman Brazilian Association), the executive tells Top Team about his activities at Bayer and adds: “our main challenge is to make the Ombudsman aware of what he is supposed to do, what he is able to do besides improving the other existing communication channels so that we can make a better use of them”.
Follow the main parts of the interview:
Top Team: Is it innovative to have an Ombudsman in a pharmaceutical company?
Jamil Zeitune: For the pharmaceutical company it is for sure, but not for the other sectors. For the government it is legal and compulsory, whereas in the private sector people are still hesitant to hear the collaborators.
Top Team: What does an Ombudsman do?
Jamil Zeitune: The word Ombudsman is originally Scandinavian and it stands for “the man´s representative”. Taking into account its etymology “ombud” may be translated as “representative, attorney, deputy; and “man” as “man or citizen”. The Ombudsman was considered legal or the first time in the Swedish constitution of 1809. The first Ombudsman was nominated in Sweden in 1810 to audit the application of the laws by civil servants. The Ombudsman may have several duties. It all depends on the needs of the company. At Bayer, it is the person in charge of listening to new improvement ideas and reducing complexity. In the market, such professional still scours conduct disorders, sexual and moral harassment.
Top Team: Why has Bayer decided on having Ombudsman?
Jamil Zeitune: This Project was born in December 2005. Schering didn´t belong to Bayer at that moment and there were several attempts to take this Project ahead. When Schering was acquired by Bayer and the current CEO Theo Van Der Loo came back to Brazil, I had all the support to raise such issue again, and after several months and meetings with the Directorate Board, we could finally start our activities.
Top Team: What results does Bayer expect to have?
Jamil Zeitune: The company expects that our collaborators share their ideas through this channel in order to make Bayer the company they´ve always dreamed of. We have the opportunity to make amends within a shorter period of time. It is important to highlight that companies like Itaú make use of data they collect from the Ombudsman for everything they need: sales, dismissals, training courses, strategic actions with the consumer, marketing plans and so on. Complaints should not be interpreted as something annoying but as opportunities to continuously improve.
Top Team: To wrap up, is the hiring of an Ombudsman a local decision or a corporate standard for da Bayer?
Jamil Zeitune: The Ombudsman has been a local decision (Brazil), as there is a job in other parts of the world closely linked to the legal department which is responsible for Compliance issues. In the ideal world, they could eventually work together or be the same person.
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