Here are 3 areas to focus on as you expand your training programs with the goal of helping every employee excel.
If running a pharmacy business were a sport, who would your star players be? You know who I mean. The people who can’t be out unexpectedly without some work or progress coming to a halt. Your superheroes of the day-to-day.
Do you have your list? There might just be a single team member on it. Maybe a few, if you’re lucky. Or you could be looking at a self portrait because you do pretty much everything for your pharmacy business.
In last week’s article, we shared some insight from pharmacist Bob Lomenick on running a successful medication synchronization program. One of our favorite tips was to empower every pharmacy team member to be a member of the “A” team. If every employee is cross trained and experienced in as many aspects of your MedSync program as possible, your program will be able to run more smoothly and effectively.
This kind of pro-active approach to employee training is so beneficial. And not just for running medication synchronization or other programs. When every pharmacy team member excels, your pharmacy business will benefit in so many ways. All of which lead to a pharmacy that runs more efficiently, is more customer-centric, and creates less stress in a pharmacy owner or managers day.
Knowing that training will benefit your patients, business and personal life is one thing. Making it happen is another. Here are 3 areas to focus on as you expand your training programs with the goal of helping every employee excel.
Whether it’s medication synchronization, nutrient depletion, delivery, curbside, meds to-beds or any other program appropriate training is key to its success. As we noted earlier in this article, cross train as much as you can, giving employees an opportunity to work at every station throughout the pharmacy. This way if someone is out, there will be another team member ready to step in.
Apart from the inner workings of your pharmacy programs, make sure that every employee is comfortable talking about the services your pharmacy offers. Remember that customers don’t know what they don’t know. Customers rely on your team to keep them informed. Take the time to regularly train on your pharmacy offerings so employees can optimize every customer’s experience by recommending appropriate programs and services.
Keep things simple for your team by performing focused training on a single service and rotating through to keep interactions fresh and everyone’s knowledge up to date.
Your secret sauce isn’t a product mix. Or a location. Or a team member. Or even a service. Your secret sauce is all of those things combining together with your commitment to community, patients and team to create your company culture. Your company culture is valuable and should be shared at every opportunity. When your team members understand and adopt company culture, they can share that with your customers.
The receipt paper outage that no one seems to know how to fix. The patient that walked away without all of their prescriptions and had to come back. The processes that you complete manually every day that sucks up time better than a vacuum sucks up dirt.
Solving problems like these is why many pharmacies choose to invest in pharmacy technology. That investment however doesn’t mean much unless your team receives training on how to use the tools at their disposal.
Training from your technology vendor partners can help you recognize opportunities for improvement, streamline processes, optimize your available tools and more. All while helping your employees build their knowledge and confidence.
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