Time is of the essence, but managing time effectively in your pharmacy can be a challenge. Most of us have been trained to respond to the speed of life and fast paced work environments so, the more you do, the more you think you can do. This doesn’t necessarily mean we are managing our time well and it definitely doesn’t mean we are managing it ‘smartly’.

As community pharmacies come under increasing financial pressure, and as we now exit (what we hope) is the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is worth giving some thought to how to boost sales of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines and products to increase much-needed revenue.

Investing in a marketing agency is something that most pharmacys, especially independents, cannot afford and it certainly doesn’t rank high on the priority list. However, there are several simple measures that you can implement in your pharmacy to keep your tills ringing. As we are in an environment where the pressures of prescription volumes go head to head with making the time to offer professional services, we have come up with some simple suggestions on how you can manage your time more effectively so that you can transform your pharmacy from a traditional independent pharmacy to a digital revolution.

1. Learn to delegate

You need to delegate the right work to the right person. That does not mean watching someone like a hawk and micromanaging, but delegating effectively. Ultimately, this will give you more free time so that you can focus on business strategy and generating more revenue. Of course, managing staffing and rotas can always cause worry and sometimes the fear of closure can impede on your productivity as a pharmacy owner. By digitising your rotas, you are allowing your staff to easily access when they are on shift and allowing your pharmacy manager to take full control to ensure all shifts are covered, all leave requests are reviewed and to ensure a responsible pharmacist is on the shift at all times. This will also allow your staff to make amendments to the rotas with permissions limited for certain staff members.

2. Plan to succeed

Planning is critical to effective time management. There is an 80/20 rule that advocates 80 percent of the time we are doing something, the remainder we are managing and planning our time. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Having a strong identity, and a clear sense of what your business is and why your customers should choose to shop with you, are recipes for commercial success. But how does a pharmacy go about defining and developing this all-important unique personality? So let’s see, you need to have a strong brand personality, the ability to choose non medicine based products to sell in store which fit with your customers interests and you need to be able to have the workforce to be able to upsell and demonstrate excellent customer service. But then, who will manage the rota’s? How will we get staff? How do we manage payments?

It all boils down to Time! Time! Time! And here is how you can save some of it. By removing your paper based processes, you are eliminating a potential GDPR risk and can increase your staff leave accuracy by giving your staff the autonomy to manage their own time off. Therefore, this leads to satisfied and more productive staff and a more structured approach for you to be able to manage. Essentially - cutting out the middle man!

Our payments system allows you to automate your BACS and control your expenditure which will reduce administrative time and improve payment accuracy. Not bad, right!?

3. Invest in technology

Money spent in automating activities, such as pill counting, can free up time. Don’t be tempted to cut corners. For example, buying software off the shelf instead of customizing it may sound like a bargain, but it will likely cost you time, patience, and money in the longer term. There are plenty of other ways to automate your activities. You can download our product brochure to see how.

4. Service Offerings

Through the use of effective rota planning through our rota product, you can ensure that the right locums are selected from our locum pool. By choosing locums with the correct accreditations, your pharmacy can enhance its service offering and charge for services such as flu jab vaccinations. By advanced rota planning, you can also ensure that you have chosen the right people with the right experience, ensuring your rota is planned on the basis of skill set so that you can maximize your revenue by offering other services to your customers.

5. Learn to prioritize.

Not all tasks are of equal importance. Determine which jobs need to be done and when. A common pitfall is setting unrealistic goals – or none at all. You need to understand what can and cannot be accomplished. Our centralised reporting product allows you to view your reports in a visually appealing way, with a well constructed and layed out dashboard which you can tailor to your own individual pharmacy.

*If you would like to learn more about how you can invest in technology that will help you to prioritize and manage your time and workforce, you can contact us today for a free demo at info@locatealocum.com *

Thanks for reading, have a great day!
Locate a Locum Team