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Dear Editor,
my name is Oberto Mandia and I am the Communications Manager of Merqurio.
We have read the article you published on April 1st and we have encountered hostile tones which do not befit the seriousness due to a federation such as FEDEAIISF.
Merqurio has been involved in training for over 25 years and responds – like any company – to the needs of the market, which currently requires us, and the entire population, to boost the use of digital channels.
With grace and professionalism – values that Merqurio strongly believes in – our CEO, Salvatore Ruggiero replies to your article with a new post:
http://www.salvatoreruggiero.it/sui-corsi-di-trasformazione-degli-informatori-in-ibridi/
On the training courses of frontal informants in hybrids
I don't think there are any more doubts that training courses for whistleblowers are essential to help acquire skills, and in this specific case, aimed at the development of remote activity. But at this point it is necessary to deepen some aspects of the training itself, which, I repeat, is of great importance for the category, above all to become valid "hybrid".
Is training useful for ISFs?
According to the standard, the requirements to be an informant of a pharmaceutical company are those dating back to 
university skills required by law, plus specific training to be paid by the company that holds the AIC. The advertising of the drug is regulated very strictly and the university and corporate training. Training courses are fundamental to the profession itself.
Is training an opportunity or a threat to whistleblowers?
Training is a valuable asset for whistleblowers, and companies that are investing in training are looking after their interests appropriately. Each informant is enriched over the years with experience and skills, many of which are provided by the company for which he works. Experiences and skills which, it should be emphasized, they are also the professional's personal assets, which he can spend on his own future, wherever he goes. So the company that invests in training courses, invests in people, and in their professional future, in the company or elsewhere.
Should whistleblowers learn new skills for their future or their past?
At the time of the Covid 19 emergency, in which I am writing, many are in the CIG, many are agents and are stationary, some are without a concrete future perspective. At this moment it is essential to observe the past and the present objectively and to understand what skills will be needed in the future. And study for one's future, which is uncertain.
Is the company's treasure the medical-scientific information or the personal relationship between the isf and the doctor?
This is a theme that often sees us on different banks of the same river. In the multichannel the report is only a means, a facilitator for correct communication on scientific grounds, since theThe objective is that the doctor must decide on the basis of evidence of efficacy and tolerability. In short, the clinical study before friendship.
Should doctors wait for informants or can they continue to update, even without them?
The doctors are already updating, of course they take online courses and seminars. They receive professional information even in these days of the Covid-19 crisis. They do it differently, more selectively and more carefully, they do it differently depending on their involvement in the emergency. But they update already today, and they don't wait for whistleblowers to flock to the waiting rooms again to do so.
Is communicational effectiveness specific to the frontal informant?
No, the effectiveness of transmitting scientific evidence is a skill that is even more important in the remote model, given that non-verbal communication is lacking. A smile, a gesture can help, and learning how to make them remotely can help you do your job better today and tomorrow.
Is it better to follow a course taught by someone who is an expert or by someone who isn't?
We do multichannel information. So: frontal, remote, digital, or mixed, "hybrid", NPP or whatever you want to call it. Merqurio knows, more than anyone else, how to operate remotely with the most suitable tools. And certainly not for this emergency, but always. We have gained unmatched experience with tens of millions of remote contacts: we specialize in training courses for "hybrid", we help whistleblowers acquire the right skills to face a market that is becoming increasingly difficult and competitive with the right weapons.
What do remote doctors think?
Much discussed topic, from surveys conducted by third parties – such as the Multichannel Monitoring, in a scientific way – a large part of doctors appreciate remote communication for its specific characteristics of "go straight to the point", "synthesis", "appointment". Others, likewise, do not like it or even do not authorize contact. It is essential, before starting an activity even in smart working, to know or be able to recognize the right doctor. A suitable course can also help with this.
Does an expert face-to-face informant already have the skills to switch to smart working in a qualified and professional way?
It is an established fact that remote communication, via telephone, web, email, use different semantics, require that the message be declined when the channel changes, and it is obvious that different elements of communication must be valued using different means. So for an informant to manage to do work from home is a risk, the risk of ruining the relationship of trust built up over the years. Better to get help from professionals and know how to move, before embarking on impromptu adventures.
In a changing world, the skills of a drug sales representative must change.
Why has Merqurio created a format of professional courses for the development of new hybrid skills?
Merqurio is a company that deals with multichannel information and also makes available training courses in the same field for 25 years. There are times when some services are required more, because companies, appropriately, see a space for development. In this case, companies see the opportunity for professional training for their men in the field with foresight. Merqurio has delivered over 7,800 hours of training to date across face-to-face, remote and blended learning in 2019 alone. We believe in training, and we believe that change comes through education and skills. After all, it is culture that guides us, both in the company and in our private life. And every hour invested in company training is a valuable investment for those who receive it. To use modern means (the telephone and the web!) to comment on clinical work with the doctor, we believe we must learn to do it right. For this we have made special courses available. To help whistleblowers do their job better even from home and prevent them from doing it improvised.
Training courses for informants
Is it better an isf prepared for new challenges or one less prepared?
Ed.: Esteemed sir. Ruggiero, we are pleased that you caught a vague sense of hostility in our article of April 1st, and how could our attitude as ISF be different towards those who have been arguing for decades that the drug's scientific informant is obsolete?
It is obvious that training is useful for everyone, always. We believe that the most usual way of communicating is direct interpersonal communication, face-to-face with the interlocutor. If this is not possible, an alternative means of communication will be used. But this too is known to all, perhaps even to her.
We believe that every communicative process between human beings has two distinct dimensions, the content (what the words say) and the relationship (what the speakers imply, both on a verbal, paraverbal and non-verbal and emotional level, i.e. on the quality of the relationship between them).
But it's not about communication that we're interested in talking, as we'll stay on our position and she on hers, otherwise how would she make money on it.
We would like to highlight the aspects of working for example a remote and/or hybrid ISF.
Surely, we are sure of it but we remember it for the uninitiated, remotely your company will be in compliance with the contents of the art. 1, lit. d) of Resolution no. 79/09/CSP of the Authority for the guarantees in communications for the call center which is defined as a set of human resources and specialized infrastructures that allows contacts and multi-channel communications with users (through various means, for example telephony, internet, mail ). This activity falls within the scope of application of art. 24 bis both when carried out through internal structures and when it is outsourced and regardless of the prevalence or otherwise of the call center activity with respect to the rest of its business.
And the hybrid, a half-part-time, half-self-employed monster! But the legislation has established that when the hetero-organization, accompanied by the continuity of the service, is marked to the point of making the collaborator comparable to an employee, equivalent protection is required and, therefore, the full application of the subordinate work disciplineor". Furthermore, according to the Court of Cassation, "it must be considered that hetero-organization can be recognized as relevant for the purposes of applying the discipline of subordination even when the client limits himself to unilaterally determining the when and where of the personal and continuous service".
They are (depending on the point of view) false employees or false self-employed, who (in most cases) cannot afford to balance stability and protection with freedom of choice. They have neither. And in these moments of virus crisis, in which the self-employed (in the short term) are more exposed, the situation gets worse. They are "formally autonomous workers but in fact bound by relationships of subordination with another economic unit which limits their access to the market and their organizational autonomy". Although they do not have the protections of employees, they do not decide the price of their services or the organization of their time (as the pure self-employed do).
A flexible work system to exploit workers or young people who can't find anything better or fired people who can't find a job. A bit like false VAT numbers, all systems for circumventing labor regulations and the related social security contributions.
Some FSIs have been forced to suspend normal work activities; but in many cases, however, the premise for testing has been created a new working methodology: smart working.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for someone like you to permanently replace your outdated ISF with a multichannel ISF!
Imagine if all the pharmaceutical or supplement companies refocused on the remote, at least 200 ISF would go on the telephone assault of every general practitioner plus another 200 supplement informants! Do you think such an approach would be tolerated for a long time?
And the market demand it has to satisfy is only due to the more or less guilty "distraction" of whoever should be in control. But a false VAT or hybrid number when he is fired will be able to go to court and have his subordinate work recognized in order to receive the unpaid social security contributions and the salaries of the CCNL not received.
We are sorry, Mr. Ruggiero, we could never agree either on the type of work of the neo ISF projected into a bright future (for you) or on the systems of exploitation that this type of work implies. We disagree on the obsolescence of the ISF.
PS: By law it is said scientific drug information not medical-scientific information, those who talk about it should at least use the correct terminology, if they know it.
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