Ready to Take Action & Turn Around Your Demotivated Pharmacy Staff?
Last month, you learned the first 3 steps to improve productivity and increase your pharmacy staff’s motivation by taking a proactive approach to the situation. Now, read on for the second stage of the process, in which you prepare and present a plan to motivate your staff to the next level.
Step 4: Give each of your staff the opportunity of completing special projects within the pharmacy and give them creative freedom to introduce it into pharmacy. These can be patient-service related, clinical, or workflow-related. Allow your staff to have ways in which they may provide ongoing suggestions (ie, a suggestion box). Take time to discuss as a team the top ones to work on next, with the input of your vision. Give your staff the autonomy to be in charge of their project. Be amazed at your staff taking ownership and having pride in what they create. Give them a sense of purpose that motivates them to do their best every day.
Step 5: Make the most of your pharmacy technicians–give your techs ownership of an area that supports you. Ideas include taking P&T meeting minutes, organizing drug files (with you doing the aspects that require clinical knowledge), and answering all phone calls unless they escalate to requiring a pharmacist. For example, in many pharmacies, when a patient asks for a pharmacist, the phone immediately gets handed to a pharmacist. Instead, train your pharmacy support staff to ask what the person is calling about, so that if they can answer the question for them, they can do so. This helps you as the pharmacist or pharmacy manager make the best use of your time. You may train your support staff to say “so that I can give him/her [pharmacist] the heads up on what to help you with, would you let me know in a nutshell what you would like help with?”
Step 6: Inspect what you expect & acknowledge accomplishments. It’s cliché, but it rings true. Consistency of performance is impossible to maintain long-term when you don’t take the time to “inspect what you expect” & continue to inspire your staff.
Taking an active approach to turn around a demotivated staff reaps great rewards in productivity, employee satisfaction, and team cohesiveness. After implementing your unique plan, watch as your pharmacy staff grows on an individual and team level. As time goes on, be sure to not let the excitement of these new responsibilities wear off. Continue to encourage your pharmacists and techs to contribute in new, creative ways.
After ASHP Midyear – Business Cards in the Drawer?
Are your business cards still in your drawer after ASHP Midyear or other pharmacy conference? If so, read Part I of this article on what to do right away before they become clutter in your drawer. Don’t miss out on some of the most long-lasting benefits of attending a pharmacy conference that most pharmacists overlook.
(In pharmacy school, I remember hearing that it’s not what you know, but who you know. Looking back, I find this to be so true and wish I recognized this earlier. I’d like to take it a step further and say “It’s not what you know, but the relationships you grow to help each other.” You get catapulted faster in the direction you want by having the support around you vs. doing it alone.)
If you are a pharmacy director who has an assistant, you can have your assistant take over pieces of what to do immediately after the pharmacy conference in Week One. Here are two more quick things to do before Week Two:
- Week One– Never under-estimate the value of a handwritten card or postcard. Following an event like ASHP Midyear Meeting, email inboxes can be backed up with emails from being away from the conference. They can blend right in with yours and get lost in the shuffle. Choose at least a few key contacts and mail a thoughtfully written thank you note that expresses how you enjoyed meeting them and that you look forward to helping them/working with them soon or down the road. Wish them the best, and let them know that you will stay in touch.Taking this extra step is memorable, simply because it is not often done and you will stand out. Come from the perspective of connecting and giving, rather than asking for anything in the note. It is a gesture of appreciation and/or helping. Try to send as many notes as possible in the weeks following the conference.BONUS “No-Procrastination” Tip: To make things as easy as possible, before you attend another pharmacy conference, bring blank cards or postcards and stamps with you to the conference. Write your handwritten note in your hotel room or on the plane ride home.
In this week, pick up the phone and call your top 3 priority connections. These are connections whom you either really hit it off with personally and want to grow that connection, or whom you can mutually benefit professionally in an immediate way. For example, your expertise or a connection you have aligns with something that your new pharmacist friend needs right now.
You may be nodding your head because you understand the benefits of taking action right away. If it’s not simple and easy, I guarantee you will not do it. You have too much on your plate already as a busy pharmacist.
“If you’ve always done what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got…” Do you want to experience a new way of developing relationships and networking which will give you help and resources that you need at the most unexpected times, or do you want to stuff business cards in your drawer? It’s your choice.
This is simple, so do it and comment on your experiences below. Stay tuned for the next step of what to do to make the most out of your new relationship with another pharmacist/other contact.
Pharmacy Directors- Biggest Management Challenges?
Share your biggest management challenges being a pharmacy manager by commenting on this blog or click here. I will answer the most commonly asked questions here. Also, stay tuned for a multi-speaker pharmacist/pharmacy manager telesummit event within the next year that will address your main management challenges.
One of the most common challenges mentioned by pharmacists about their management is managing expectations and communicating expectations clearly.
One way to communicate expectations clearly is to conduct set performance reviews.
Here’s a pearl on having performance reviews that inspire your staff’s performance. Something you may not be doing currently: Include the pharmacist rating him/herself on measurable factors, in addition to you as the pharmacy management evaluating the pharmacist. Allow the pharmacist to participate in the creation of some of those measurable factors as well.
Stay tuned! I will write on other ways to communicate expectations effectively in another blog article.
“I Don’t Want to Spend Time Training”
This article is for Indian Health Service pharmacy directors only.
This is one of the most common comments pharmacy directors share with me, both for training new hires and relief pharmacists. A way to save you time to train is to hire slowly for the right hire and screen for pharmacists who have as many translatable skills as possible. If you have a relief pharmacist coming in, select someone with IHS experience. At the same time, there will always be new procedures and strategic direction unique only to your facility.
Training is an area that is easy to shortcut. The most common excuses are: “I don’t have time”, “Things are always changing around here; just ask other pharmacists how they will handle this.” Read more
How Will The Healthcare Reform Affect Pharmacy Practice?
(Updated 3/30/10)
There has been a lot of buzz & speculation about how the healthcare reform will impact pharmacy practice. Concrete understanding of its true impact will be made more clear as it moves forward into implementation.
Many pharmacists feel that the healthcare reform is likely to positively impact pharmacy practice because of its support of pharmacy practice and its importance in the healthcare system.
Pharmacy-related aspects of the passed bill include a loan-forgiveness program & grants for pharmacist-provided medication therapy management (MTM) services. The bill scales back cuts to Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement rates under the average manufacturer price, and exempts pharmacies from durable medical equipment accreditation requirements.
Increased access to healthcare as a result of the reform is expected to increase healthcare demand, and some say this is good for pharmacists. However, more prescriptions filled does not mean more money generated for pharmacies. For example, with Medicare, you must fill a higher volume of prescriptions to generate the same amount of profit as you may when a patient is on insurance.
As the healthcare reform moves forward and plays itself out in the upcoming years, it is important for pharmacists to continue to educate our legislators on what pharmacists do. The impression we make to our legislators can result in their support or lack of support about what pharmacists do. Some legislators do not see the level of care that pharmacists can provide to them in the pharmacies they go to. This can happen especially in pharmacies that are understaffed. In those pharmacies, pharmacists may not be able to give each patient the attention they’d like.
How do you think the healthcare reform will affect pharmacy? What are your biggest questions about how it can impact pharmacy? I know some of you are concerned about whether pharmacist salaries will be affected; others wonder how it will affect the pharmaceutical industry or managed care pharmacies. Share your questions below.
How can you contribute to educate the public about our profession & encourage lawmakers to encourage pharmacy practice the way we’d like to practice? Check out APhA’s website on steps to take to make legislators aware of what we do. Share your story and move legislators. Comment below with your opinion on how the healthcare reform will impact pharmacists and their practice.
Is it Aptitude or Attitude that Counts in an Interview?
Aptitude gets you in the door. Your resume is the place to show off your aptitude. Are you a pharmacist with relevant experience for the role that they are looking for? Do you appear to consistently be an overachiever who is loyal (and likely to be a good investment for the company, rather than a job hopper?)
During the interview, you will clarify your aptitude so that a potential pharmacy employer feels confident about your capabilities related to the job. Your employer is also looking for the right attitude.
I have seen pharmacists who may have been borderline in consideration when it comes to experience, but they were able to stand out from others in a resume and sell themselves so well in an interview that they get the job. The pharmacy director or hiring manager appreciates the attitude and enthusiasm of the pharmacist, finds it to be a good fit, and wants to offer him/her the job. That is how important crafting your resume to stand out & acing the interview is.
Be cautious about being overconfident without being able to back it up; it won’t do you much good. Saying that “I can learn quickly” is trite to the point that you might as well have not said it at all. However, if you back it up by examples & tie it in to the specific responsibilities of the job, it makes you stand out. Example: “My recent pharmacy manager asked me to start a pharmacy-run smoking cessation program. Although I didn’t have the experience, I participated in intensive training & created a program that helped 121 patients quit smoking in 6 months; X % of the patients continued to be non-smokers after 12 months.” See the difference?
This is something that my students in the Get the Edge program have practiced to get the edge over the competition during the application & interview process.
What do you think–is it aptitude or attitude? Share your thoughts or your own experience where aptitude or attitude seemed to have counted more—comment below.