Hiring the Right Staff in your Pharmacy or Patent Medicine Store; Challenges and Solutions
The health care system comprises people and organizations whose primary aim is health promotion, preservation, and restoration. The responsibility of pharmacies and patent medicine stores in the healthcare system is to administer safe and effective use of medications to attain optimum health. However, with the growing burden of diseases, pharmacies and patent stores are being tasked with additional duties such as diagnosing and treating ailments, like typhoid and malaria. Successful pharmacies and patent medicine stores run on qualified staff to provide the best medical care to patients while retaining customers and maximizing profit.
To hire the right staff, you must take into consideration the qualities needed to provide excellent customer service, increase customer patronage and boost profit. Due to the peculiarity of services provided by pharmacies and patent medicine stores, hiring the right staff is tasking.
It is crucial to create a clear job description, evaluate candidates based on their abilities and experience and conduct interviews to determine suitability for each position. With escalating pressure to reduce cost, improve patient access and meet regulatory compliance requirements, pharmacies and patent medicine stores face a lot of challenges. Strong candidates for positions in pharmacies or patent medicine stores should be confident in answering questions regarding drug interaction and the health care system as a whole. You may ask hypothetical questions to likely assess how the candidate will fare in a real-life scenario.
We have put together this article to help you hire the right staff in your pharmacy or patent medicine store. Keep reading to learn the strategies you can employ the best human resources.
Before diving into how you can hire the right staff, let’s explore the challenges you may have encountered in hiring the right kind of staff.
Challenges encountered in hiring the right staff in pharmacies or patent medicine stores include;
1. Increase in work-related stress levels: According to the World Health Organization, burnout is work-related stress that has been ill-managed. In most pharmacies and patent medicine stores, the workload to staff ratio is high. The number of daily prescriptions in pharmacies and patent medicine stores has increased especially with the COVID-19 pandemic because patients are stocking up on medications and supplements for chronic conditions. An ideal pharmacy or patent medicine store should be open 24 hours because of the services they provide, due to increased workload, employees have had to work long shifts to meet up with growing demand thereby causing work-related stress which could lead to depression, anxiety, and other unhealthy behaviours.
2. Candidate-centered job market: Due to rising demand and workforce shortages, the pharmacy job market has transitioned to a candidate-centred market. This has led to rising competition to attract top-notch professionals. Pharmacies and Patent medicine stores have been advised to increase staff retention because of the high level of competition.
3. Limited uses of automation and pharmacists extenders: Because of the lack of required education and training, the role of pharmacy technicians has been slow to grow out of fear of public safety. Requirements for practising as a pharmacy technician have become more stringent in recent years with many requiring licensing and certifications.
How to hire the right staff for your pharmacy or patent medicine store
You need to invest time and resources to hire the right people to avoid costly mistakes. Do not rely on your instincts or that hunch because they are never enough. Make your hiring process objective and based on facts.
The hiring strategies below will help you find the right staff to help grow your pharmacy or patent medicine store:
1. Be clear and precise on job requirements: You need to be precise about the requirements and skills needed for the job. This includes a detailed summary of the role, a list of duties, responsibilities, and the required and preferred skills for the position. This will help candidates know if they possess the right skills and experience your pharmacy or patent medicine store requires.
2. Test before hiring: Interview questions can reveal a lot about a candidate’s skills and experience but you need to test if the candidate has the emotional intelligence and personality traits to work in your pharmacy or patent medicine store.
3. Request input from your staff: Involving the rest of your pharmacy team in the hiring process is a great way to see if a candidate will fit in. Introduce the candidate to your staff and observe how he or she interacts with them. Request feedback from your staff stating whether they believe the candidate would be a good addition to the team or not. Although the final decision rests with you, the input from your team will assist you in finding the ideal candidate for your pharmacy or patent medicine store.
4. Evaluate candidate personality: With different roles come different skills which are interrelated with personality types. For instance, an extrovert would be a wonderful addition to your sales and marketing team while an introvert would enjoy a bookkeeping job because they would be spending most of their time alone. Hiring the right personnel goes beyond impeccable grades, a person can learn on the job but personality can never be learnt because it is innate.
Apart from the strategies listed above, you can consider recruiting from your existing staff. For example, if you need to recruit for a senior position, find out if any of your staff has enough experience to be promoted to that position. Invest in your current staff, and organize training from time to time to boost job satisfaction. This will reduce the chances of your staff quitting your pharmacy or patent medicine store in search of better employment opportunities. Also, keep close contact with medical schools; this will allow you to hire from a talent pool.
Closing thoughts
Your pharmacy or patent medicine store is a reflection of your staff. The right staff will contribute to the success and growth of your pharmacy or patent medicine store. The wrong staff will not only cost you money but also your organization. This is why you must hire the right staff.
While you are thinking of hiring the best staff for your pharmacy or patent medicine store, you must have a conducive work atmosphere that will foster teamwork, productivity and growth. You can do that by creating a feedback system that acknowledges and appreciates your employees’ work. In this way, you’ll encourage them to give their best at work and also be glad to refer great staff to your organization. To gain more insights on how to make profitable business decisions in your pharmacy or patent medicine store, visit the Remedial Health blog today.
