Cvs rph splitting 3 days now

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

ancienbon

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2010
Messages
769
Reaction score
246
I heard that cvs wants all Rphs to split 3 days now. Since I live more than 1 hour from my store, there is no way I will be able to do that. DM manager said that rphs may send email to him explaining how they can't split 3 days., and he will forward the email to corporate.

I guess it is going to be time to look for new job

Members don't see this ad.
 
Haven't heard of it. May be regional.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I have to write an email . any good points I can use to dispute his?
 
There are no good points to dispute it. Only temporary option is for all pharmacists in the store to 'refuse' to do it... in the meantime your RXS will probably be looking for pharmacists who will follow company mandates. I mean, do you think they care that your commute is too long or that it kills any possibility of long weekends? Their logic is that they are reducing overall daily workload for you, provide you with smaller shift that you dont work 14 hours (if you only work 7 hours, you can't really complain that you didn't eat all day). In other words, they are improving your quality of life.

I would rather not work 12-14 hour shifts but the alternative of being at work 5 days a week doesn't excite me. I know I know. You work 5 days a week at most normal jobs.
 
I heard that cvs wants all Rphs to split 3 days now. Since I live more than 1 hour from my store, there is no way I will be able to do that. DM manager said that rphs may send email to him explaining how they can't split 3 days., and he will forward the email to corporate.

I guess it is going to be time to look for new job


In a sense it would probably be safer and better for patients and pharms. However, you work 9 to 3 and your partner comes in at 3pm and you go home. Easy peazy right? Except with chronic understaffing and call off of techs do you leave a mess for your partner and walk out the door? Or do you stay for an hour or so to help out? My guess you will stay as we all would. End result is CVS gets more free volunteer time by their pharms. Heck they didnt tell you to stay or schedule you so they sure dont have to pay you. Saves money and gets them out of lawsuits because pharms are working off the clock of their own choice to try to get all the metrics etc done. CVS corporate is pretty smart I must say.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
In a sense it would probably be safer and better for patients and pharms. However, you work 9 to 3 and your partner comes in at 3pm and you go home. Easy peazy right? Except with chronic understaffing and call off of techs do you leave a mess for your partner and walk out the door? Or do you stay for an hour or so to help out? My guess you will stay as we all would. End result is CVS gets more free volunteer time by their pharms. Heck they didnt tell you to stay or schedule you so they sure dont have to pay you. Saves money and gets them out of lawsuits because pharms are working off the clock of their own choice to try to get all the metrics etc done. CVS corporate is pretty smart I must say.

Exactly
 
How does this work? If you work from 9 to 3 and 5 days a week, are you still going to get paid 40 hours a week?
 
If this works, I don't see why CVS won't expand it nationwide. I wonder if other retails will follow as well.

6 hours makes sense. Pharmacists will be more "fresh" and therefore, more productive. They don't have to give a lunch break. They can also hire a bunch of part timers and not give them any benefits.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Nothing surprises me with this company. They are always pushing the envelope, whether it is ethical or not. They treat their employees like crap and they don't give a damn. Take it or leave it mentality. Thanks a lot greedy pharmacy schools for causing the saturation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
However, you work 9 to 3 and your partner comes in at 3pm and you go home. Easy peazy right? Except with chronic understaffing and call off of techs do you leave a mess for your partner and walk out the door? Or do you stay for an hour or so to help out? My guess you will stay as we all would..

And this would be the case. So now its dragged out for 5 days staying over instead of 4.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I heard that cvs wants all Rphs to split 3 days now. Since I live more than 1 hour from my store, there is no way I will be able to do that. DM manager said that rphs may send email to him explaining how they can't split 3 days., and he will forward the email to corporate.

I guess it is going to be time to look for new job

You might as well quit, that's not a legitimate excuse. Walgreens has always done split shifts and floaters travel an hour or more everyday. They won't make an exception.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
You might as well quit, that's not a legitimate excuse. Walgreens has always done split shifts and floaters travel an hour or more everyday. They won't make an exception.
well wags has more rphs hrs and all store has 2 hrs overlap on most days.
 
CVS is all about profiting off of free labor. I feel so bad for all those new grads they'll hire and the current employees who have to put up with this company...

Having 2 pharmacists during the day will not only result in more free labor, but will also result in decreased tech hours to make up the difference.
 
I think it will end up being nationwide. There are plenty of stores who were splitting shifts already because they wanted to.

Can't say I feel bad for new grads. They know what they are signing up for. They should be aware by now of all the changes and schedule changes.
 
Can vouch for this too. It's being pushed in some districts and not others in my area. The whole letter to corporate thing sounds like a BS scare tactic to not get pushback.
Yeah. Might be worth offering to send the plea to "corporate" personally and including things like "As I've been informed by Dr Pharmsup you have decided that pharmacists nationwide are banned from working whole days". When the statements made to you about the official existence of this policy are revealed to be false, a call to the ethics line will get major results.
 
You might as well quit, that's not a legitimate excuse. Walgreens has always done split shifts and floaters travel an hour or more everyday. They won't make an exception.


I was wondering what the big deal is. That's my schedule at Walgreens except I start at 8 am and we rotate every other weekend.
 
I was wondering what the big deal is. That's my schedule at Walgreens except I start at 8 am and we rotate every other weekend.

You don't know any different. Split schedule sucks. You spend more timing getting ready for work, going to work, and staying extra at work.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
You don't know any different. Split schedule sucks. You spend more timing getting ready for work, going to work, and staying extra at work.

I've never stayed over and dont know very many that do. 4 o'clock means it's time to go. We do.2600 to 2800 per week so don't bring that up as an excuse that you are busy, train your staff correctly. I don't see the benefits of full shifts. First I do work weekends but I don't mind it, I get most management work done during this time. So I.work all days one week with wed always off and my staff rph always gets thurs off. The other week I work three nights with thursday morning so I'm pretty much always able to go to any events my kids have after school.

Don't full shifts have to work 3 to 4 weekdays to close? I don't really know how it works. How do you have family time and what to you do with yourself during the day on those extra days off when everyone else is either at work or school?
 
Full shifts or split shifts, you work same number of days to close anyway, unless your partner prefers to work to close. And personally, I just don't like the idea of being forced to split. There are plenty of stores that split on their own because it works for them. We could do it on our own but we prefer not to. So there are options but now those options are being eliminated. And in my case, I would still have 2 12 hour weekend shifts and 1 14 hour shift a week, so the benefit is negligible.

I don't think busy or not busy is really the argument here either. The concern is job security and maybe the level of expectations and the tactics company uses on their employees vary. I can see why someone would stay over 30 minutes here or an hour there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
So how many nights do you currently work? 4? 5? 6?
 
Whatever number every other day is. 5 weekdays every 2 weeks plus weekends.
 
The part I hate about splitting is that no matter what you still have long days (in my case, 14 hours). If splitting eliminated the long days I would be all for it. But no, it just makes me work 5 days a week with at least one 14 hour shift per week. I much preferred working fewer, longer days than working more days and still having some long days.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Just got a text. Apparently starting 3/1 all non 24 hour CVS will be closing at 9 pm instead of 10 pm. This is nationwide.
 
I guess there was an rx sup conference call this morning to talk about it
 
Less time, more work. Obviously they can't get rid of the pharmacist so by closing an hour early, they are cutting pharmacist hours.

Those who don't think the saturation will affect them, here is another example.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I got confirmation from my sup. Starting 3/1. RPh bases will have to be reconsidered...
 
Just got a text. Apparently starting 3/1 all non 24 hour CVS will be closing at 9 pm instead of 10 pm. This is nationwide.
Saving 5 hours/week *52 weeks * $60/hr = $15,600 per store. Nationwide that's huge. Downside is that you're doing 14 hours worth of work in 13 hours.

Is that official public knowledge yet? I don't work there, so it's not insider trading, right?
 
My understanding is that all RPh were told today, so I'm assuming it is public knowledge.

Apparently 8-8 stores on the weekends are going 9-8 as well, so it's gonna be 7 hours a week instead of 5.
 
Lets do the calculation. Lets assume each store will save 7 hours a week and there are currently 7,800 stores (including 24 hour stores)

7 hrs/wk * 52 weeks * 7,800 stores * $60/hr = more than $170 millions a year so lets assume $150 millions a year (to be generous). Who is buying CVS stocks?!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Allegedly the salary savings on RPh's will transform into more tech hours, so total cost remains the same. Not the worst idea, if they follow through with it.
 
Lets do the calculation. Lets assume each store will save 7 hours a week and there are currently 7,800 stores (including 24 hour stores)

7 hrs/wk * 52 weeks * 7,800 stores * $60/hr = more than $170 millions a year so lets assume $150 millions a year (to be generous). Who is buying CVS stocks?!


Revenue was $127 Billion in 2013. $150 million is insignificant.
 
Just got a text. Apparently starting 3/1 all non 24 hour CVS will be closing at 9 pm instead of 10 pm. This is nationwide.

This is true, but my boss told me about it like a week ago, do I think they knew bout it for a little bit. Most people actually don't seem to mind.

I still have my 42 hour base, though, granted, I'm a night RPh.
 
I don't see them giving more tech hours. It is not their style to do something like this 2 months after budgets are out. I do see them saying something like 'We kept your tech hours same as last year instead of cutting them more because of this upcoming change'

I doubt it will do anything to shift splitting. Now 13 hour shifts will be split.
 
Gross income $23.8 billion. Yup.

I don't care about gross income. I am talking about profit. Ultimately profit is what matters.If CVS can save $150 millions a year then that would add $150 millions to their slim profit margin.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/05/02/cvs-caremark-quarterly-profit-rises/

"CVS said Friday its profit rose to $1.13 billion, or 95 cents a share, from $954 million, or 77 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings checked in at $1.02 a share versus 83 cents. Revenue climbed 6.3% to $32.69 billion."

Still think $150 millions is insignificant?
 
Last edited:
I don't care about gross income. I am talking about profit. Ultimately profit is what matters.If CVS can save $150 millions a year then that would add $150 millions to their slim profit margin.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/05/02/cvs-caremark-quarterly-profit-rises/

"CVS said Friday its profit rose to $1.13 billion, or 95 cents a share, from $954 million, or 77 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings checked in at $1.02 a share versus 83 cents. Revenue climbed 6.3% to $32.69 billion."

Still think $150 millions is insignificant?

I respect your opinion and was not looking to get into an argument. In my opinion it is not significant. I guess by profit you mean EBIT or EBITDA. The $150MM is not going going to add directly to that net income number which was 4.6B. It will subtract from the SG&A line item which was 15.82B. Everything else does not remain equal. Decreasing your hours of operation is probably going to have some impact on top line revenue. You will sell a few less OTC items because no pharmacist is there to recommend or counsel. A few scripts won't be sold and may even be transferred out. It's like snow days -- you never get those lost sales back. Where do they go? They just disappear.

The question is whether the decease in SG&A expenditure will outweigh the loss in revenue. I would say yes, but not by nearly the entire $150MM. I think the net impact will be not very significant but I could be wrong. I think a bigger impact will come from pharmacists working extra hours on their "split days".
 
Split shifts should cover the extra hour. That is for sure. Since the company has financial analysts crunching those numbers, I'm sure they figured out there is profit in it and it is worth doing. With my rudimentary analysis, I would just be scratching the surface. You would need fewer pharmacists in the overall scheme to paying less OT to cover some hours. Do most pharmacies even operate past 9pm nationwide? I can argue that CVS was always touting longer hours as an advantage over competitors but now that advantage would be gone. Betting on in-stock and customer service without that advantage is kind of risky.

Also, I don't think many customers would walk into a pharmacy to buy something OTC, see pharmacy closed, and walk out empty handed. If anything, they might spend more money because they would not buy the right thing. A pharmacist would give a specific recommendation and save them money on items they would not need.
 
Allegedly the salary savings on RPh's will transform into more tech hours, so total cost remains the same. Not the worst idea, if they follow through with it.

NO, CVS will not add additional tech hours. Are you kidding me? When was the last time they ever did that?

Do you remember when CVS went on a firing spree and fired a good amount of field management and consolidated districts maybe about 5 to 6 years ago? Everyone was saying that more tech hours would be given to stores because of the consolidation and the firing of expensive field employees. Did that ever happen? HELL NO!

Once CVS comes up with a formula for tech hours, that's it. There is never a situation where they will increase tech hours. This is one of the easiest ways for them to save money. They will cut tech hours first before RPh hours. When they start cutting RPh hours, never will they put back more tech hours.

Don't drink the Kool Aid. Think.

And all the CVS co*ksucke*s will start defending them now..
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
And here's some information for all of you. In October I was told by my RxSup (who is very close with that guy "Bob" who is like the Regional something something) that CVS in the north east region is getting rid of 7 on 7 off shifts for nights (POSSIBLY) and is also getting rid of 14 hour days and is going to 8 hour shifts for all pharmacists. It's something they are working on, but eventually this will be company wide. A good example is CT where I believe they started this already. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is where the company is headed.

SO.. they are going to 8 hour shifts maximum. They are not sure if they are going to leave the overnights as is like 7 on 7 off.
 
And here's some information for all of you. In October I was told by my RxSup (who is very close with that guy "Bob" who is like the Regional something something) that CVS in the north east region is getting rid of 7 on 7 off shifts for nights (POSSIBLY) and is also getting rid of 14 hour days and is going to 8 hour shifts for all pharmacists. It's something they are working on, but eventually this will be company wide. A good example is CT where I believe they started this already. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is where the company is headed.

SO.. they are going to 8 hour shifts maximum. They are not sure if they are going to leave the overnights as is like 7 on 7 off.

How can they go to 8 hour shifts in higher volume stores with shifts like 8-6 and 12-10? Or I've even seen 8-8 and 10-10 in some. Or 8-5 and 1-10.
 
Do 8-3, 12-6, 3-9 (10). You can make it work. I wouldn't want to be in receiving end of that.

RxSups are supposed to be close to their Bob. Each regional Bob has probably 5-8 districts I would guess.
 
Top