Pharmacy team morale, or the lack of it, is dependent upon a meaningful, productive, fulfilling relationship between all staff and between pharmacists and management.

Satisfied pharmacy team members display visible signs that include cheerfulness, attentiveness to the needs of their customers and patients, a willingness to go the 'extra mile' and a positive attitude to those that they encounter. Patients may comment on employee performance via satisfaction surveys such as the Community Pharmacy Patient Questionnaire (CPPQ) or by offering unsolicited letters or gifts.

Issues such as increased absenteeism, conflicts with co-workers, insubordination, decreased productivity, disorganised and unkempt work environments, staff complaints about seemingly insignificant work-related issues or patient and customer complaints about an employee's behaviour are all signs of low morale. You may recognise these. With low morale comes a high price tag.

Research from The Gallup Organization estimates there are 22 million actively 'disengaged' employees in the US €“ costing the American economy as much as $350 billion per year in lost productivity through absenteeism, illness and other problems that result when employees are unhappy at work. The impact in the UK will be on a smaller scale, but proportionately the effect will be no less significant.

In these turbulent times, it is very easy for managers €“ who may feel even more overworked than those they manage €“ to take the view that people are lucky to have a job and 'should just get on with it'.

In some respects, this approach may work in the short term, but over time, it has the potential to destroy morale, diminish productivity and cause staff retention issues. In turn, this will increase recruitment and training costs further down the line.