Top tips to empower your pharmacy's staff

Have you ever considered that giving your staff more authority could raise your profits?

On the way to improving your bottom line, workplace experts, pharmacy owner/operators and others say employee empowerment increases productivity, improves integrity and customer service, provides for better inventory turns and control, and helps attract better employees.

You may even find you don't need to staff up as much if you empower your existing employees to take on new responsibilities.

How much power is too much?

That's the sweet spot you learn from assessing the abilities of your staff through training and focus on teamwork in your pharmacy. Take it slowly and be methodical.

What’s the best way to empower your employees? 

• First, hire right. Getting promising candidates into pharmacy jobs, both behind and in front of the counter, is the first step to assessing their abilities as long-term assets.
• Wait until employees prove they can handle their initial duties before giving them more power, a process which can often take three to six months. Be patient with the initial assessment, which is key to learning the full range of employees' abilities.
• Give employees more responsibility based on a set of rules laid down by management. For example, in the frontshop, employees can accept returns, but only if they are accompanied by a receipt or are in their original package.
• Welcome employee suggestions about issues such as adding new products, staffing at cash registers and setting up creative displays of hot products. Look for employee input into systems that will enable more efficient running of the dispensary, from routines to technology.
• Give employees some insights into your store’s finances. Yes, your pharmacy's finances, especially if you are independently owned. Don’t necessarily show them your bank balance, but sit them down once a month and go over strategic planning, inventory and profit margins.
• Get a feel for your staff's abilities to "upsell" pharmacy services. Upselling can be an excellent tool to empower employees to make decisions that affect your bottom line.
• Consider offering employees a share of the profits, such as 10% divided among all staff. If they own a small piece of the business, they know they have a stake in the long-term success of the pharmacy – and their jobs.
• Give frontshop employees authority to make price changes but only after they have the evidence that a price needs to go up or down. If customers repeatedly complain that a price is too high, employees should have the power to make a reasonable reduction or make a wholesale markdown to get rid of items that are not moving, because the market is sending a message.
• Promote members of your team when you recognize ability and initiative. Promotion rewards empowered staff for rising to the challenges arising daily in a pharmacy's operations.