I spent two days this week revisiting one of my favorite stores in Zone 8. I helped train this store back in September and have worked there a few times since. The store is mid to high volume and has a pretty large staff. I was asked to return this week to find out what has gone wrong at the store and why they seem to be struggling so much.
Within twenty minutes of arriving I was pulled aside by the general manager of the entire grocery store to discuss several issues and listen to his concerns. By the end of the first day I had most of the pharmacists and technicians express their thoughts as well on why they were doing so poorly. It was apparent that everyone knew the pharmacy had problems, they knew what most of the problems were, but throughout both days I didn’t see a great effort from the staff to solve those problems.
I first made some minor adjustments to workflow and, with the help of the Zone Coordinator, added a new workstation. These were merely quick fixes that wouldn’t really get to the root of the problem. The major issue this store faced was a lack of leadership. This is a problem that cannot be fixed in a day without completely replacing the pharmacy manager.
I developed a list of problems and action items to solve those problems and met with the store manager to discuss the issues. I know the store will require more attention over the next few weeks, but my job there was done. I really hope they are able to turn things around because I love the people at that store. They have a well trained staff and technicians that take pride in their work.
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5 comments:
I'm curious, what was the outcome in this store?
I'm going to check in on the store soon. I will post an update when I find out how they are doing.
Great, I'd like to hear what happened.
Not that there aren't poor PICs out there, but I'm only asking because I've been around a while and I've seen my share of PICs (myself included) who've done their best after being placed in difficult situations, and then hung out to dry by poor district pharmacy supervisors based only upon the petty manipulations of store managers and/or technicians.
When you mentioned that you talked to everyone BUT the PIC about problems in the pharmacy, it made me think that perhaps the same is happening to her/him. If so, that would be a shame. I'm hoping that management supports the PIC and is helping him/her to succeed.
Great news! I just got an email from the PIC of the store that I wrote about in this blog post. It sounds like workflow has really improved since my visit and I was able to help out. I don't think they are completely out of the woods just yet because there were several problems that required long term solutions. At least now in the short run things are better and they have identified problems they need to fix to be a better store in the long run.
To clarify, I actually did speak to the PIC quite extensively during the two days I was there. I didn't mention that in my original post. I think he is a great guy and truly wants to do a good job. His only real downside is that he is sometimes too nice and is sometimes taken advantage of for that reason.
I'm glad to hear that this PIC didn't get hung out to dry, Joey. It happens way too often and is one of the reasons why many retail pharmacists have bad attitudes. The sad part of it is that it's usually one of their "colleagues" who's hanging them out to dry. I hope management continues to support the PIC's efforts.
Believe me, I understand how this PIC could be taken advantage of for being too nice. Being too nice is one of my own faults, and I've suffered similar consequences. It's really difficult to deal with schemers who have nothing better to do with their sorry lives than to make the workplace more difficult than it needs to be.
But on the other side of the coin, why is management listening to these schemers who abuse the system and harm the efforts of the PIC? How could anyone succeed in such an environment?
BTW, my apologies for assuming that you didn't speak with the PIC beforehand.
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