Can you be fired from a chain for having poor metrics?

[rxstudent2013]

Hello,

After graduating about a year and a half ago and moving to a new company, I have been pharmacy manager of my pharmacy for about a year. While working, I push every metric and individually have good success. However, my staff pharmacist seems to be lax about everything, and not care about meeting company goals. With only one of us pushing what the company wants, our metric scores are usually always either average or slightly below. I am having increased stress about potentially losing my job because of this. However, I am naturally a worrier and think I might be thinking too hardly about things, and thinking that my DM pointing out these metrics to me is part of his job. Is not having stellar metrics something an RXM could be fired for, or is one usually just demoted to floater? I hope this post doesn't sound too silly, just something that has really been stressing me out. Thanks for any input!

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[SpartanLaser]

Yes, CVS can fire you for any reason (at will employment). Bounce before it is too late!

 

[owlegrad]

How many PIC's have you seen fired for poor scores?

 

[rxstudent2013]

How many PIC's have you seen fired for poor scores?

I haven't seen any but I've only been a pharmacist close to two years so honestly I have no idea if/how often this happens. I also didn't really work retail before (hospital instead).

 

[owlegrad]

I haven't seen any but I've only been a pharmacist close to two years so honestly I have no idea if/how often this happens. I also didn't really work retail before (hospital instead).

I have never seen it happen. Been with CVS over 5 years now. The more usual arc seems to be either you get sick of being a PIC and you beg/plead with them to make you a staff/floater/part time or you find greener pastures and move on. Or some people just keep toiling away at being a PIC. I suppose some people must get promoted to pharm sup, but I have not seen that happen yet.

 

[owlegrad]

Wait, you used to work in a hospital but now you work for CVS?

 

[rxstudent2013]

Wait, you used to work in a hospital but now you work for CVS?

When I was an intern in school I worked hospital. I switched to retail after graduation, I really enjoyed my last year retail rotations. But, company is not CVS like the other poster assumed!

 

[Old Timer]

The answer is yes you can. Will you be, probably not. However, you need to sit down with your partner and get him/her on board. If not you have to go your superior and say get the jack-off out of your store. You can't make the grades unless everybody is on board.

 

[maria1oh]

They will usually first write you up for poor job performance before firing you or demoting you to a part time floater.

 

[BMBiology]

They can fire you for breathing too loudly.

Actually they don't need to fire you. They just have to demote you to floater status then cut your hours. By doing so, they hope you will leave.

 

[ChalupaBatman86]

It makes the supervisor look bad if underperforming metrics continue month after month. It also looks bad for the supervisor if they fire a lot of pharmacists (or even if a lot of them quit). Ideally they are supposed to be managing and coaching their pharmacy teams to improve those numbers. If the metrics don't improve or if they get worse the supervisor will be managed out and/or will get little or no bonus. Firing the pharmacist is usually not the ideal outcome but it might happen especially if you have other issues or poor attendance. Documenting poor performance on metrics and issuing progressive discipline makes it easy to get rid of you if they need to.

 

[lt23]

HAHAHA i find it funny that SpartanLaser assumed rxstudent works for CVS just because the word "metrics" was mentioned.

 

[DexterRx]

I assumed CVS as well due to the term "metrics" being used. haha

 

[SClENCE]

My PIC had poor scores/metrics. The DM wrote her up weekly for stupid crap then fired her.

 

[BidingMyTime]

I would say your first step is to talk with your staff pharmacist, and not with the attitude of "you are a problem, you aren't doing your job.", but with the attitude that your staff pharmacist, like most other employees of any company, are given minimal training & just thrown into the job. Assume your staff pharmacist really doesn't know about the importance of metrics or what contributes to the outcome of those metrics. Maybe focus on 1 metric a week, tell your staff manager that your DM wants you to improve metrics, and that as team, you and your staff pharmacist will figure out how to do this. Share your ideas with your staff pharmacist, and listen to their ideas. If you have a positive attitude, and work as a team, most likely your metrics will improve.

As for you being fired, no company is going to fire you for having "average" metrics. By definition, 50% of all the pharmacies in your district will have at average or below average metrics. And if your company actually fired all the pharmacy managers of those pharmacies....well, there will STILL be 50% of all their pharmacies in their district at average or below average. So metrics is not the problem. Most likely, your DM is just trying to encourage you to do better, to essentially help raise the average. Possibly, if your DM doesn't like you for some other reason, he may try to document that metrics is a problem, and use that as grounds for firing you. But I don't see you getting fired for average metrics, if you were consistently way below average or always at the bottom of your district, that is the kind of person who might get fired for metrics.