What would you do?

[Old]

A family member works in a small rural hospital where the pharmacy department is contracted out to a pharmacy service company. A director of pharmacy and her plus an occasional weekend relief pharmacist and a couple per diem pharms.

The issues are these: The department manager is scheduled for 40 hours per week but is maybe there 30 hours per week, leaves early, comes in late and really doesnt help with the required work load when another pharmacist is there. he will sit in the office and pay his personal bills or cruise the internet. He makes sure he gets a lunch but will not fill in for her so she gets a lunch break.

Three years of rating 3.5 or 4 out of 5 and guess how much the raises are. ZERO. No raise for 3 years. Reason: nobody can get a raise because the hospital contract with employees and this pharmacy service company are not settled yet. Three years?? Yet, the pharmacy gets an award for saving the service company money and being profitable. Per diem people are making 15.00 per hour more. yes 15.00

Techs call off constantly for sick time(shopping, other family member doctor visits etc etc) or if the other techs perceive the hospital census is to low. Note: other techs call the techs off . this is okay with director unless he is there. one tech actually runs the department and him( an odd situation).

She had called me and expressed her unhappiness with the situation. she needs the job so walking out is not the best option right now. Do these service companies routinely not give raises or does the director of pharmacy get a larger bonus because of dollars saved to budget like CVS. should she get a lawyer? She has mentioned these issues to him repeatedly with no results. told her I would ask a group of peers.

What would you do?

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[Momus]

Repeatedly mentioned the issues with no resolution + 3 years of negative salary (-9% purchasing power from hire date) = no thanks... Start looking for a new job now and drop 2 weeks notice once found...

 

[RxQueen2010]

I work for a company similar to the one you describe. We have a great relationship with our contract hospital and I feel confident about my job security. I received a 3% raise last year and expect the same this year. If I were your family member, I would definitely leave as soon as I could. Sounds miserable!

 

[Old]

When she first started she was willing to help out and it wasn't unusual for her to work 10 or 14 days in a row so DOP took multiple vacations some as long as 21 days. Of course, the schedule sent to the pharmacy service provider did not reflect that and showed he was at work many days when he was out of town. Hence is paid vacation/leave was not used up. she is not willing to do that anymore since it was an all the time thing and being the only pharm for that many days in a row burns you out. it is not unusual at Christmas time for an 8 hour scheduled day for him would be a 2 hour day because he had an emergency shopping trip. I can't make this up- its true. Do any of these companies actually track the DOP or do they all do as they please? Really not a fair situation.

 

[awval999]

When she first started she was willing to help out and it wasn't unusual for her to work 10 or 14 days in a row so DOP took multiple vacations some as long as 21 days. Of course, the schedule sent to the pharmacy service provider did not reflect that and showed he was at work many days when he was out of town. Hence is paid vacation/leave was not used up. she is not willing to do that anymore since it was an all the time thing and being the only pharm for that many days in a row burns you out. it is not unusual at Christmas time for an 8 hour scheduled day for him would be a 2 hour day because he had an emergency shopping trip. I can't make this up- its true. Do any of these companies actually track the DOP or do they all do as they please? Really not a fair situation.

Life isn't fair.
She should look for a new job and then resign. If she is financially stable enough she can just resign right now.
Tell her to do the job to the best of her abilities and look for other employment opportunities.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Is there something wrong in the DOP's life or is the DOP just spoiled and lazy? If there are enough complaints, then his service contract will not get renewed.

Is there one of those comments/concerns boxes somewhere else in the hospital that staff pharmacists can anonymously put a note it? Every person working there should submit a complaint.

My old retail pharmacy manager would do sick stuff like that. She would leave after only working 6 or 6.5 hours on the weekend while graveyarders were working 11 hour shifts, then tell me that I got an entire week off, so too bad.
Graveyarders were staying over by an hour or two each day as well, because techs were calling off and not getting replaced yet PIC was working less than the required 44 hours per week, because of the shortened weekends. An abusive spouse didn't help the situation either... If she was 10 minutes late to leave, her cell phone would start going off.

 

[Old]

No, nothing going on his life that would make this behavior understandable. Small hospital and no suggestion box etc. This woman has to stay over almost nightly. Why? Because she often works most of the afternoons/evening by her self. In addition any late admits/orders she takes care of before she goes home so the morning people will have it easier. He on the other hand does not do any of them and she generally walks into a mess daily if he was there til close the night before. I wonder if this service company would listen if she complained to them or would they just assume she is a disgruntled employee and her complaints are without merit? Anyone with any experience with them?

I think he does what he does because he does not have to punch in and nobody ever checks up on him. Really not fair.

 

[awval999]

No, nothing going on his life that would make this behavior understandable. Small hospital and no suggestion box etc. This woman has to stay over almost nightly. Why? Because she often works most of the afternoons/evening by her self. In addition any late admits/orders she takes care of before she goes home so the morning people will have it easier. He on the other hand does not do any of them and she generally walks into a mess daily if he was there til close the night before. I wonder if this service company would listen if she complained to them or would they just assume she is a disgruntled employee and her complaints are without merit? Anyone with any experience with them?

I think he does what he does because he does not have to punch in and nobody ever checks up on him. Really not fair.

Advise her to resign. Life is not fair.

 

[Its Z]

Document the hours the DOP works then file a complaint with the DOP's boss at the corporate. Which company is this...PSI, Cardinal, CPS, or CompleteRX?

 

[Its Z]

The raise is based on the hospital not the management company. If hospital gives a raise to employees, then there's a raise. If not, no raise. After all, the salary is a pass through and the hospital pays it.

Bonus is a different story since it's paid by the management company. If contract service saves a boat load of money for the hospital and the company makes a nice profit, then the DOP will get a nice bonus.

 

[Old]

I believe it is one of the companies you mentioned but I have to ask her permission before I can post it. Doesn't not giving a raise to Pharms for 3 years increase the profit of the service company since they are paid by them and not the hospital? Would that not translate to a bigger bonus for the DOP? Would the service company actually do anything? I believe she has documentation out the kazoo( I told her to track a couple of years ago) but would they listen? To "Its Z" you were a supervisor for one of those companies-what would you have done if a complaint was filed?

 

[Its Z]

Like I said before, salary is a pass through. Its determined by the hospital and the raise is too. If she didnt get a raise for 3 years then neither did anyone at the hospital. She needs to quit bitchin about that. In fact if she bring that up then her credibility is at risk. Again bonus for the dop is different because it comes out of the management company as an expense while the salary is paid by the hospital.

What would I have done? Do the right thing. Investigate and involve HR to identify any violations. Dop is exempt...which means hes not obligated to work 40 hours per week. So working less than 40 hours doesn violate any regs. There are 2 sides to every story. Ineffective managers dont last...and it will eventually catch up to him. Obviously it hasnt yet. Im not taking sides but i used to take this kinda crap seriously.

But what i see from your post is a morale downer of a dop...not an HR violating one. what you have is a relaxed and lazy dop who has a dept running well. So one tech flexes schedule for another when volune is low. whats wrong with that unless it violates a rule?

 

[Its Z]

No, nothing going on his life that would make this behavior understandable. Small hospital and no suggestion box etc. This woman has to stay over almost nightly. Why? Because she often works most of the afternoons/evening by her self. In addition any late admits/orders she takes care of before she goes home so the morning people will have it easier. He on the other hand does not do any of them and she generally walks into a mess daily if he was there til close the night before. I wonder if this service company would listen if she complained to them or would they just assume she is a disgruntled employee and her complaints are without merit? Anyone with any experience with them?

I think he does what he does because he does not have to punch in and nobody ever checks up on him. Really not fair.

Has she ever asked the dop to come out of the office to help? If not she has nothing to say. It would be nice for the dop to pitch in and be a working dop. Is that the expectation from the hospital and the management co?

If she stays over...doesnt she get overtime? we frown on overtime. Obviously its not that much otherwise hospital would have been all over it.

Its not fail for DOP to expect the staff to do DOP work. At he same time, staff often thinks dop sits in the office and does nothing. not true. If hes surfing the we and paying bills I bet your relative has too.

Next time she just needs to holler across the pharmacy and say "hey dop Im swamped.m.come out and help."