Sources of workplace pressures and negating negative impacts

If we understand and acknowledge the sources of pressures in the workplace and specifically the community pharmacy, we may well be able to acknowledge the impact it has and in turn put safeguards in place to reduce and negotiate these pressures. Often the answer is thought to take too long or cost too much money, but this is rarely the case and management actually investing in staff might cost time and money in the short run but over time actually improves output and makes money with retained, well trained and motivated staff with less pressure.

The pressures usually fall into two categories the work content and the work context:

Work content

Job content
. Boring, monotonous tasks with a lack of variety in the job e.g., constant dispensing can be overcome with rotating staffs job roles round e.g., ordering and receipting of supplies. This has the added benefit of multi-skilled staff who can support each other in times of absence sickness etc.
. Underutilisation of skills and abilities so staff are positively pressured. (We already from earlier in this module that pressure can be a good thing). Managers need to both acknowledge and utilise these enhanced skills and abilities e.g., checking tasks
. Unpleasant, aversive tasks e.g., cleaning and medications disposal can't be avoided but all staff doing a little bit each takes the pressure off just 1 person. 

Workload and work pace
. Too much or too little work to do
. Understaffing can be overcome with quality recruitment and incentivising staff to join. Not all incentives need to cost money e.g., promoting a positive and open workplace atmosphere
. Time/deadline pressures can be reduced if planned for in advance
. Inadequate tools or equipment can be overcome with regular servicing and purchasing of new equipment e.g., tablet counters , robots etc.

Work hours/schedule
. Offer staff less inflexible work hours based on their availabilities e.g., childcare needs
. Mandatory overtime is easy to overcome with voluntary well paid overtime offered
. Rotating shift schedules as much as possible. Many pharmacies now offer evening and weekend hours to meet the needs of their patients. This can meet the needs of the staff as well!

Participation and control
. Lack of participation in decision-making can be overcome with an open culture and regular meetings where everybody is listened to. 
. Work schedules and pace lead to pressure but adjusting schedules where realistically possible to meet both staff choices and needs will negate this.

Work context

Role in the organisation
. Ambiguity about a person's role and the boundaries of what they can and cannot do with customers can be dealt with using a high quality job description, contract and in depth induction.

Career development
. Job insecurity issue can be dealt with by completing regular supervisions, spot checks and appraisals
. Motivated engaged staff have greater promotion potentials and a fair performance evaluation will assist with process and in turn reduce pressure in the long run. 

Interpersonal relationships
. Lack of support from supervisors, co-workers etc leads to low morale of staff and a bullying culture with extra pressure. 

. Aggression and violence from patients is usually dealt with an enforced strict zero tolerance to abuse policy.   

 . Conflict resolution cases are dealt with equally for each case and not based on job titles, years of experience, personal bias etc.

Organisational climate/culture
. Inadequate and poor communication leads to extra pressure and the opposite reduces it.
. Again Poor leadership leads to extra pressure and the opposite reduces it.
. Yet again discrimination (age, race, sex) violence, harassment, bullying leads to extra pressure and the opposite reduces it. Therefore a detailed and enforced equality, diversity and inclusion policy (which is a legal requirement anyway under the Equality Act 2010 ) will in turn lead to less pressure on staff.