Q&A: Improving Pharmacy Staff Well-Being Through Supervisor Support, Workplace Culture

The National Pharmacist Workforce Study reveals that patient harassment, lack of supervisor support, and disengagement from decision-making contribute to poor workplace satisfaction and higher turnover.¹ As health care evolves, organizations must prioritize real action, including training leaders, enforcing respectful conduct policies, and valuing pharmacy staff input, to improve mental health and workforce stability.

Q&A: Improving Pharmacy Staff Well-Being Through Supervisor Support, Workplace Culture / Zamrznuti tonovi - stock.adobe.com

Drug Topics® recently sat down with Brianne Bakken, PharmD, MHA, associate professor at the University of Iowa College of Nursing and an author on the National Pharmacist Workforce Study, to discuss what steps employers can take to address workplace issues like burnout, discrimination, and harassment to create a healthier and more supportive environment for pharmacy staff.

Drug Topics: What steps can employers take to address workplace issues like burnout, discrimination and harassment, to create a healthier and more supportive environment for pharmacists?

Brianne Bakken, PharmD, MHA: That is the number one question. Regarding discrimination and harassment, we added some new questions in the 2019 National Pharmacist Workforce Study and wrote a pretty detailed paper about pharmacists experiences of discrimination and harassment. One of the big key takeaways from that study was patients were the number one offender of harassment. I know that sounds obvious now, but in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, it didn't have the notoriety that it obtained during the pandemic. I think that really built upon this idea of mistreatment from patients. I think we're making steps in the right direction, but this is intrinsically really hard to tackle in health care. When you're being mistreated by your customers or your patients in another industry, you can say we don't tolerate it. On American Airlines, they say “We're not going to tolerate this.” You'll be asked to leave or you won't be allowed to fly with them again. In health care, you have someone who's sick who needs you. You have health care professionals who came into it because they want to help. Are you really going to turn someone away or kick them out of the hospital when they're sick? That's a really challenging concept.

I think we're starting to see more hospitals and pharmacies trying to implement policies and procedures for addressing patient misconduct. The other big thing is you have to be willing to enforce them and the follow through has to be there. The way that you stand up and support your employees and then follow up after an incident occurs I think is also a big portion of this in terms of improving the work environments just more broadly. I think there's a lot we can do and this is really one of the reasons our team started to incorporate questions from the NIOSH [National Institute For Occupational Safety and Health] Well-Being Questionnaire [WellBQ] into the National Pharmacist Workforce Study, because of the focus on improving worker health through the work environment.

One of the things that stood out to me, we're digging into this and really starting to look at how the NIOSH WellBQ variables, workplace policies, culture and the work environment contribute to overall job satisfaction reported by pharmacists and their reported turnover intentions. When we looked at that, two things stood out and they actually had a few items that showed up under job satisfaction and as an indicator of their intention to leave. The first one was supervisor support. We found that for pharmacists, one of those drivers was, “ I trust the management or leadership in my organization.” The other one was “I can count on my supervisor for support when I need it.” This really opens up an area of focus on how we train and prepare those in management and leadership. I think some of this is carry over from the pandemic. There was a high amount of turnover. We saw individuals in leadership roles leaving and you need to fill that seat. The reality is sometimes it was folks that are really great clinical pharmacists who moved up into a leadership role, maybe without training. Being a clinical pharmacist doesn't always mean you're going to be a great leader. The lack of training and education is really starting to show if you don't feel equipped to support the people reporting to you, to help them and facilitate their growth, their success and overcome challenges. All of those folks are going to struggle.

I think there's definitely an opportunity there to retrain and educate those in that frontline manager leader role to make sure they're equipped to support the people that are reporting to them, including fostering their mental health and wellbeing. That also includes frontline pharmacists and pharmacy technicians involved in the decision making as much as possible. Think back 20 or even 40 years ago, it was primarily independent pharmacies—small, close knit relationships, very little hierarchy between the owner and the frontline pharmacist. They had a lot of autonomy and ability to contribute to the practice and make changes. As we become more corporatized, both in the chain environment and we're seeing this in hospitals that are getting bigger and bigger, turning into giant health systems, the frontline pharmacists aren't being involved in the decision making. They're starting to feel frustrated when decisions are made that directly impact or influence them.

In addition to supervisor support, the other big one that stood out was the organization's commitment to employee health and well-being. This really encapsulates not just the organization saying they care about well-being, but the commitment about actually following through and implementing policies, programs, and procedures that actually facilitate well-being. Are you willing to put the employee needs over your own?

I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I think it really relies on engaging frontline pharmacists and pharmacy technicians and seeing what it is they really need. That might be region specific or site specific, but you really do need to have that type of dialog, which includes manager and leader support, to be able to have those conversations and then actually follow through on implementing things that actually improve mental health and well-being.

READ MORE: Why More Pharmacists Are Exploring Nontraditional Roles

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References

1. Mott DA, Bakken BK, Nadi S, et al. Final Report of The 2024 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey. Pharmacy Workforce Center; Washington, DC, USA: 2024. Available online: https://www.aacp.org/article/national-pharmacist-workforce-studies