Before you can encourage positivity in your team, you need to remove any obstacles to it. By doing this, you can ensure that your team won't start getting motivated and then run into a series of roadblocks. This start-and-stop progress is dispiriting, and it can quickly undermine your team's sense of motivation.

Herzberg's Motivator and Hygiene Factor Theory gives you a great starting point for working on motivation. Psychologist Fredrick Herzberg discovered that employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not opposites. For your team members to be satisfied in their jobs, you must first remove the causes of dissatisfaction, and then add factors that contribute to satisfaction. Both of these steps need to take place for your team members to feel truly happy in their work.

For example, are there policies or working practices in your pharmacy that could be causing dissatisfaction for your team members? Is each person's salary competitive? Would your team members be happier if you provided crosstraining opportunities to work on the medicines counter and dispensary or to work more flexibly? These are just a few elements that could contribute to your team members' satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

The environment of your pharmacy itself is something that has the potential to destroy motivation and positivity. So, take steps to create a healthy workplace for your team, and involve them in bringing this about. Look at the full work environment €“ it should be comfortable, well-lit, clean, and safe. Other elements, such as life balance, employee recognition and involvement, also play a big part in your team members' happiness (or lack thereof).

Recognition for a job well done should never be underestimated, so do make sure that your team are appropriately praised and rewarded.