10 Ways to Engage with Your Pharmacy Team

Team members, staff, employees—whatever you refer to your pharmacy staff as, it’s important to realize they are your most important asset when it comes to longevity and success. Treating them with respect, empowering them with decision-making, and building a culture of happiness are just a few of the ways you can engage with your team and show them you care. Below are ten ways you can take team building to a new level. Follow these tips and your team will not only thank you, but they will reward you with loyalty, increased customer happiness, and higher productivity.

Be There

When people need you, they need all of you. Setting aside distractions and judgments to be fully present is a sign of respect. It improves communication and strengthens relationships. Simple gestures of thoughtfulness, thanks, and recognition make people feel appreciated and valued. When you make someone else feel good, you feel good too.You can be serious about your work without taking yourself soseriously. Play is a mindset more than a specific activity. It allows you to throw yourself with enthusiasm and creativity into whatever you are doing, in a way that is natural, not forced. “Playing” with ideas helps you find solutions to everyday challenges.

Choose Your Attitude

Choose how you respond to life, not just react, you must be intentional. Moment-to-moment awareness is key. Ask yourself throughout the day, “What is my attitude right now? Is it helping the people who depend on me? Is it helping me to be most effective as a leader?”

Get to Know Your Team

Here is a simple exercise that will help everybody feel at ease. Go around the group and have everyone say two true statements about themselves and one false. The rest of the group has to guess which one is false. If participants find it hard to think on the spot, give them index cards and let them write it down. Then, toss the cards into the middle of the circle, so you have to guess who the person is and what is false. You may be surprised. You can learn some crazy things about each other!

Offer Educational Assistance

Whether it be a pharmacy college course or free online webinar, encourage your employees to continuously improve their skill set.

Create Your Own “Club Med”

Set aside a quiet space or unused office in a pharmacy where employees can take their break, nap or otherwise re-center themselves. Spruce up the area with a nice coat of paint, leadership books, the latest copy of America’s Pharmacist, board games, team photos, and customer feedback.

Create a Teaching Pharmacy

Share your knowledge as a business owner and pharmacy professional and help them acquire more marketable skills. Tap into your team’s knowledge and have them teach as well.

Look After Their Families

Show your appreciation for employees by involving their families in their work life and work-related social activities. From family movie nights to “bring your child (or pet) to work days,” these activities can go a long way to making good on your commitment to, and appreciation of, your employees and those who support them.

Offer Memberships and Discounts to Local Businesses

Whether it’s a gym membership, access to  season tickets or movie tickets, these can help promote employee well-being as well as leverage relationships with other local businesses.

Show you take your employees’ wellness seriously

Losing just one employee, frequent sick days or a prolonged illness can be frustrating and a draining on resources as a lean pharmacy. Examples: create a wellness program (physical, mental and even fiscal), extend the lunch hour once a week to allow employees to take a “30-minute power walk,” or offer prizes for quitting smoking.

Offering your teams a specially designed program and rewarding them with a fun, inspiring culture works wonders when it comes to running a successful pharmacy. Your team’s happiness will translate into happier customers, less employee turnover, and increased productivity. Talking about how these programs will make your pharmacy team perform like a finely tuned machine and implementing them are two different things. Download this free ebook, A Pharmacy Owner’s Guide to an Exceptionally Effective Implementation – it will help you put into practice the team building strategies mentioned above!