5 Common Staffing Mistakes Pharmacies Make…and How to Avoid Them

When pharmacies are evaluating their expenses for ways to increase their profitability, one critical area is often overlooked – their staffing. The irony is, that of all the things that impact your bottom line, from DIR fees to reimbursement rates, staffing is one of the only areas a pharmacy can control. In fact, there are several ways to adjust your approach to staffing to ensure your pharmacy is operating as efficiently and profitably as possible. Here are five common staffing mistakes pharmacies make, and how to avoid them.

1. Hiring because you feel busy.

Think about how you currently assess your staffing needs. How are you determining when it’s time to hire? If you’re going off how you or your staff feels instead of using reports and data, you may wind up hiring unnecessarily. In fact, after reviewing things like your store volume, the average number of scripts being processed per hour and identifying your peak times, you may find that a scheduling adjustment or modifications to your store hours may be all that’s needed. Here are some examples:

• Your reports may indicate that most of your scripts are being processed during a specific window of time. This helps you to pinpoint when you’ll need the most help, and where you can scale back.

• If your volume is low first thing in the morning or later in the evening, you may not need to be open as early or late as you are. By adjusting your store hours, you can reallocate your staff to help cover your peak times instead.

• If your first or last hour of the day are the busiest, this may signal you need to extend your hours slightly. By opening an hour earlier, or staying open an hour later, it can help spread out the demand so it’s more manageable for the staff your already have.

The bottom line? Hiring more staff isn’t always the answer to your problem. Read more >