How to Provide Reprieve From Pharmacy Staff Burnout
Many pharmacy professionals are needing to juggle increasing job responsibilities with decreasing time to complete tasks. Pharmacy leaders must know not only are they not immune to this, the pharmacy staff they manage isn’t either. As a result everyone on the pharmacy team can often be pulled in many directions. An unfortunate final piece to this introductory framework is the current COVID-19 pandemic. The continued effects of the pandemic are felt by everyone, including many pharmacy team members who must grapple with even more work on top of new potential stressors in their personal lives.
How Can Leaders Prevent Burnout While Demand Grows?
Increase Schedule Flexibility
One example of why pharmacies have used Indispensable Health's StaffRx services was to provide their pharmacy staff more downtime by increasing the flexibility of the pharmacy staffing schedules. The StaffRx team can provide pharmacy client’s temporary pharmacy professionals to cover shifts during weekends, nights, and holidays the client’s pharmacy staff can in turn be off and have a chance to rest. Additionally, StaffRx covers shifts that are difficult-to-fill to not further inconvenience a client’s short staffed pharmacy. Leaders partnered with a pharmacy staffing agency help their pharmacy staff’s morale, as well as, improves the retention of these valued employees by having coverage when it’s needed.
The founder of The Happy PharmD, Alex Barker, PharmD., brings light to burnout being the most significant issue facing pharmacists. Barker calls attention to major red flags for burnout including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (a type of dissociation), lack of accomplishment, and conflicting core values between the pharmacist and the company they work for. Burnout aside, professionals inside and outside of pharmacy have been known to leave their job for feeling appreciated on the job, feeling overworked, and a lack of work-life balance.
How to Prevent Pharmacy Staff Turnover?
Remain Mindful of Burnout Risks & Promote Employee Wellness
Pharmacy managers who utilize a pharmacy staffing agency help retain valued pharmacy staff members by preventing, or providing reprieve from burnout, balancing workloads so the staff doesn’t feel overworked, and potentially fostering quality work-life balances that might not have existed without temporary staffing coverage.
How to Improve Pharmacy Job Satisfaction?
Think Outside of The Box for Pharmacy Coverage Needs
Some pharmacy departments have requirements such as requiring a pharmacist to be on-call during off hours. Indispensable Health’s TelepharmRx, Telepharmacy Services, includes multiple remote pharmacy coverage options including a first call option. A pharmacy manager requested for our first call service to meet their pharmacy’s on-call requirement. First call worked within this facility by the nursing staff calling our TelepharmRx team during early morning hours and often we would often be able to answer the nurse’s question regarding dosing, correct calculations, and so forth. Utilizing this type of telepharmacy service enabled the facilities regular pharmacy staff to get a good night’s sleep, not be drowsy the next day, and it ultimately improved job satisfaction and retention for the pharmacists.
Provide Pharmacy Staff Breaks for Weekends & Holidays
Schedule flexibility can go a long way in helping pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and all pharmacy professionals remain satisfied with their current employment and may in some ways help to minimize the additional burdens so many are facing with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Frequently, our StaffRx professionals provide schedule flexibility to our pharmacy clients by taking on weekend or holiday shifts to minimize what the client’s regular pharmacy staff works, as well as other special events a pharmacy professional may have in their personal life. There is no long-term commitment when using our StaffRx pharmacy coverage, and the pharmacy can utilize pharmacy staffing coverage whenever it’s needed, such as providing standard pharmacy staff a break from some less-desirable shifts.