A business such as a pharmacy cannot survive solely on an owner. It requires a team to help you run the business and how successful the pharmacy operates is dependent on how great your team and their dedication are. There are many factors that creates a great team however the driving force is through team engagement. A business relies on the energy, commitment and focus of their team members to allow your pharmacy to survive and thrive.
How to Recognise an Engaged Team Member
There are three levels that an employee can feel engaged:
· High Engagement: These team members not only are physically present, but they also contribute to their role and to your business with their heart and soul. These team members are happy and are in the right roles where they can showcase their talent and are willing to go above and beyond. Their loyalty to the business is very strong so consider if they can be an emerging leader for your business.
· Moderate Engagement: These employees are relatively happy and satisfied in their role but will do the bare minimum. They are more customer focused and not business focused so they don’t really feel invested in the business values and goals. Most pharmacy owners find majority of their team’s engagement sits here and they find it difficult to transition them to a higher engagement level to grow their business.
· Low Engagement: These team members are disengaged. Their constant negativity contributes to a toxic work environment, and they can be vocal about their negativity. Change for them are usually unwelcomed as they either fear it or simply don’t want to. It’s hard for the business to grow at this level of engagement.
How to Create Team Engagement
Team engagement is so powerful that it can make an impact to the productivity and profitability of your business however it doesn’t happen overnight and it requires a lot of time and effort to build and get it right. It is a common issue owners and/or managers speak to us about as they struggle to identify, measure and improve engagement within their team. The main factors that will make up team engagement is through communication and connection. Here are some ideas which you can utilise to help boost team engagement:
· Most people think the answer to team engagement is rewarding the team through personal remuneration, time off or staff perks. This can help in some situations but should not be your only strategy.
· Reward through personal and team development that will increase empowerment, trust, communication, problem solving and boost creativity. Think outside the box and look for rewards that are going to benefit not only your employees, but the business as well. Some examples can be professional development opportunities, going to pharmacy conferences, networking opportunities or trust building activities.
· A good culture or positive workplace environment goes a long way to help nurture team engagement. Positive energy in a workplace is filled with trust and accountability and provides less resistant. If you don’t know how to create your team culture, check out my past blog.
· Spend time with the team. Teams are made up of people and people need human connections to build trust in order to work with each other. When people are connected, they are likely to be more engaged in their role, be better team players and stay longer with the business.
· Ensure the right people are doing the right roles. When you have this right, they just simply excel as the challenges keeps them thriving and they feel the purpose of what they do and their contribution to the business is more meaningful. Ensure you maintain training or upskill them to ensure they have the tools to continue to grow in their roles.
· Work on your business brand. Your pharmacy is going to build a legacy and reputation so work out what your purpose and brand is and why an employee would want to work for you. It will also help in the hiring process to see whether your values and vision aligns.
· Include employees in business strategies. You can set the tone, cast visions, communicate changes and update them on business performance. At the same time, they will feel respected that it can empower your team to share ideas and make suggestions. Having a clear vision of the future that you are all aligned to will make them feel more inspired and more connected to their work and reaffirm the importance of their role they have been trained to do.
· Set constant challenges for your team to maintain momentum. When you set challenges for your team, it is going to bond the team together and provide accountability during check ins. It will also highlight how well your team works together or problems that will be encountered that require it to be resolved. Challenges can be a mix of business KPI’s and personal team challenges to make it fun.
- Business KPI challenge: Involve your team to set up their goals for the business for the month, quarter and or/year. You can use this as an opportunity to improve business and team performance by identifying problems or improvements and set KPI’s to work together to resolve the issue.
- Some examples of personal team challenges include fundraising for a charity important to a staff member, doing a fun run together, ways to improve health like a daily steps/water intake challenge.
· Team Huddles or having a professional forum to communicate with the team (i.e. Microsoft Teams, Slack) can make a big impact to your business process and ensure everyone is on the same page through clear communication and holds accountability. Daily communication with the team allows your team to pass on important info, share updates or share achievements especially when your team members are on different rosters or need to catch up on what has happened since they were last in.
· Regular meetings and check ins (i.e. weekly, fortnightly, etc.) with your team member allows feedback to the employees. The benefit of doing this rather than waiting for a performance review means you can course correct or make changes faster which in turn avoids reduction in profits.
· Sometimes you have tried every resource in the world but feel like you are not getting far with your team. Send through to the team surveys for them to complete so you can get an indication of where the problems are. When you do receive the completed surveys back, make sure you do make changes and communicate this with your team. They want to be heard so make sure you take action and provide feedback from the surveys.
Your team will always be one of the biggest assets and costs to your business so it is vital to put time into nurturing and developing team engagement. The investment in your team will translate to increased profits, increased productivity and allow your pharmacy to grow.
Written by Victoria Le.
Victoria Le is a highly accomplished Practice Manager at Peak Strategies, boasting an extensive professional background as a Chartered Accountant and Manager spanning more than a decade. With her wealth of experience and expertise, she excels in guiding the organisation towards success and ensuring optimal performance.