Pharmacy Employee Training System That SCALES Your Pharmacy FAST

Summary

Dr. Lisa Faast, owner of DiversifyRx, shares a practical framework for systematically training pharmacy employees to ensure consistency, efficiency, and growth. She emphasizes focusing on roles rather than individuals, documenting all tasks, prioritizing learning order, and dividing training into manageable weekly sections. Her approach includes shadowing, practice, and testing to build confidence and competence over four weeks. Dr. Faast also highlights a tech-driven method by Austin Hooks, available at the Pharmacy Profit Summit, that simplifies tracking and retraining employees. This structured system reduces chaos, enhances onboarding, and empowers staff to contribute effectively, making employee training a cornerstone of pharmacy success.

Takeaways

• 😀 Employee training is essential for scaling and running a successful pharmacy without headaches.
• 😀 Training should focus on **positions**, not individuals, to create a systematic and consistent process.
• 😀 List all tasks for each position ('spaghetti on the wall') before prioritizing what to learn first.
• 😀 Prioritize tasks in order of importance to determine the learning sequence for new employees.
• 😀 Divide training into four sections based on workload or complexity, each section forming a weekly focus.
• 😀 Weekly training schedule: Monday-Tuesday shadowing, Wednesday-Thursday hands-on practice, Friday evaluation/test day.
• 😀 Trainers must be fully trained themselves to ensure employees learn processes correctly and consistently.
• 😀 Systematic training prevents chaos, inconsistent teaching, and ensures repeatable onboarding for future hires.
• 😀 Onboarding a new employee typically takes about a month, but simpler positions may require less time.
• 😀 Technology can simplify tracking, retraining, and managing multiple employees, making training easier and scalable.
• 😀 Consistent, structured training increases employee confidence, competence, and overall contribution to the pharmacy.
• 😀 Creating the training framework requires effort upfront but is reusable unless significant changes occur in positions.

Q & A

Why is employee training crucial for pharmacy owners?

Employee training is crucial because it helps ensure that all staff members are aligned with the business's processes and standards. Consistent and systematic training separates successful pharmacies from average ones by creating efficiency, reducing errors, and ensuring smooth operations.

What does Dr. Lisa Faast recommend as the first step in employee training?

Dr. Lisa Faast recommends starting by breaking down the positions in your pharmacy, not by the people, but by the actual jobs that need to be done. This allows you to focus on the specific duties required for each role.

How should pharmacy owners prioritize tasks for training new employees?

Pharmacy owners should prioritize tasks by determining which skills are most important for new employees to learn first. For example, a cashier might need to learn how to answer the phone before learning how to bring up a customer. Prioritization helps streamline the training process.

What is the benefit of splitting employee training into sections?

Dividing training into manageable sections helps reduce the overwhelm of trying to teach everything at once. It ensures that employees master smaller, more digestible parts of their role before moving on to more complicated tasks.

What is the weekly training structure Dr. Faast suggests?

Dr. Faast suggests a weekly training structure where Mondays and Tuesdays are dedicated to shadowing and asking questions, Wednesdays and Thursdays focus on hands-on practice, and Fridays are for testing the new employee's understanding and proficiency.

What is the importance of Friday tests in Dr. Faast's training framework?

The Friday test serves as an evaluation to ensure that the employee has mastered the skills and tasks they were taught throughout the week. It also allows the trainer to identify any areas that need improvement and reinforce the learning.

How long does it typically take to fully train a new pharmacy employee?

It typically takes about a month to fully train a new pharmacy employee. Some positions, like delivery drivers, may require less time, but most roles can be effectively trained in four weeks using Dr. Faast's systematic approach.

What does Dr. Faast suggest for ensuring consistency in employee training?

Dr. Faast recommends using a systematic framework to create a consistent training process. This includes writing down all job tasks, prioritizing them, splitting them into sections based on difficulty, and ensuring each employee is trained the same way to avoid confusion.

How can technology help with employee training in a pharmacy?

Technology can simplify training by allowing pharmacy managers to track employee progress, ensure consistent training across multiple employees, and streamline the retraining process. Dr. Faast suggests using technology to make employee training and tracking easier and more efficient.

What can pharmacy owners learn from Austin Hooks' presentation at the Pharmacy Profit Summit?

Pharmacy owners can learn from Austin Hooks' presentation how to integrate technology into employee training, making the process easier and more organized. He will demonstrate how to track employee progress and create effective training systems using tech tools.