Are All of Your Employees on the A-Team?

Article

If you want to achieve your goals and dreams as a pharmacy owner, you can't do it alone.

If you want to achieve your goals and dreams as a pharmacy owner, you can’t do it alone. You need A-Team staff members who are truly outstanding.

No matter how few or how many individuals are on your staff, you’re dependent on each and every one of them, as each has a role to play in your success. High performers will get more work done with better outcomes. As you’ve doubtlessly experienced, poor performers not only get less work done, but also get in the way of helping you achieve your goals.

In my former retail businesses, we set goals for individual achievement over a quarter (90 days), after which each individual was reviewed against his or her goals. Those who achieved superior goals weren’t only commended, but also received a raise.

I remember one young woman named Roberta. She constantly exceeded her goals and even set new standards for her sales position. Each time, she was given a small raise, and no matter how much her salary increased, her productivity kept going up. In other words, her sales increased more rapidly than her pay rate.

The standard of excellence for our type of stores was a productivity index of 10, meaning each salesperson needed to produce $10 in sales for every dollar paid in salary. By the time Roberta left several years later, her productivity index was more than 14, in spite of all her salary increases.

Roberta was a member of the A-Team.

A-Team players get more work done, achieve higher goals, and cost you less (in terms of production and productivity), even if their salary levels are higher. In return, A-Team players expect more than a paycheck.

Eventually, you need to ask yourself:

  • Are all of my employees members of the A-Team?
  • How do I measure performance?
  • Will training make a difference, or do I need to replace one—or more—of my staff members?

If you want to succeed long-term, as well as short-term, your team must be radically superior to your competitors’. Better attitude, behaviors, and service, including the ability to inform and educate your patients, must be self-evident at all times. And so, hiring superstars becomes a competitive tool.

Now, ask yourself:

  • Do you completely understand the importance of having only A-Team members?
  • If you have one or more team members who aren’t on the A-Team, what can you do to improve their performance?

In a forthcoming article, we’ll discuss the cost of making bad hires and why hiring slow and firing fast is crucial to your success.

The Pharmacy Sage can be reached at (518) 346-7021 or Lester@ThePharmacySage.com

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