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Okay, as a CPO employee, allow me to shed some light on what life is really like there. Just for some background info, I was a tech in the store for many years prior to transferring to Power.
I work in PCC (the call center part of Power). It is absolutely miserable. We are graded very strictly on our quality and average handle time. We are only allowed an average handle time of 83 seconds per call which requires "politely interrupting" customers when they begin to ramble.
There is a print out with a script we must read from when we interrupt.
When inputting refills for a patient, we must say, "We expect this to be ready for you tomorrow." NOT using the word "expect" is a 5 point deduction on our quality score. Even if we see there is a TPR and we know for certain this med won't be ready when they come in to pick it up, we still must say "We expect to have this ready for you tomorrow." Using the word "expect" doesn't emphasize a promise. Then of course they respond with "ummm I need this TODAY.. I'm sick!" So then we respond with, "We expect this to be ready in 1 hour." Again, even if we see it won't be ready, we must still say that. It's a don't ask, don't tell policy. They even tell us that in training! AND, we must use the caller's name twice in every call, whether it's mom, dad, sister, mother or brother of the patient. If we forget to use the name twice, we go on "Step 1."
There is no time to breathe between calls. They have it staffed with just the right amount of people to where there is always a constant influx of calls. As soon as the call ends, the next one beeps right in. It is absolutely exhausting, and we sit there for up to 3 hours or longer with no break.
Employees are allowed about 2-5 minutes a day for bathroom time. You must have an adherence rate of at least 95%, or you will be sent packing. The computer tracks every time you log out.
Morale is extremely low at the CPO. It's an extremely depressing place (even with the iPods that are allowed in the data entry department).
The managers try to make it look like a fun place to work with millions of balloons and ribbons plastered all over the working areas. Pictures of employees who have long since been fired still remain on the walls to make it seem like such a happy place. It's all phony, and no one buys it.
And YES, 95% of the employees working at the CPO have never stepped foot in a pharmacy and their previous job was working the drive thru at Wendy's. I am one of a rare breed at that place.
During the after-session Q&A at a pharmacist's meeting I attended this year one of the keynote speakers ripped on Walgreen's for creating POWER to give pharmacists more patient contact time and then slashing the budget so they were now all cashiers with still no time to engage in actual clinical patient care work. Apparently the pharmacy world knows that WAG is seriously damaging the profession even as it churns out marketing materials to the contrary. The big tell, however, will come when the economy has stabalized and corporations relax more. RIght now execs at all companies are tight on everything and seem to function as if they are expecting everything to crash again at any moment. If WAG remains this miserly post-recovery, then the company and certainly the profession of chain pharmacy is in serious trouble. Until that time, we can only speculate.
At this point it doesn't look good, but WAG is at least trying to reorganize the system so it's not as reliant on pharmacists for dispensing since that long-standing staple pays less and less every year. Soon, it may not even be economically viable to spend a lot of resrouces on dispensing: it doesn't pay well anymore and a machine can do most of the dispensing work there anyway; pharmacists are needed for the clincial evalution of the prescriptions and the patient counseling end of things. The company has made major missteps in the middle and lower managment in capturing cash paying opportunities to the extent that pharmacists like myself have pursued those outside of WAG with physicians and the like. Perhaps they will come out of their nostalgic stupor for the good old days when reimbursements were high and dispensing paid for everything when they realize they are once agian running behind behind the professional practice curve, and that is what got them all in trouble in the first place.
The more I work at Walgreens, the more I question whether this is the place for me. No matter how hard I work, there doesn't seem to be any support available. There is always this "cloud" of when the hammer is going to fall and RPhs will start to be layed off. Rumors of Rphs and techs being layed off. There is too much to do (dispensing, phone calls, SDLs, problems, and now....flu shots, pneumonia, MTMs, etc.). It's not humanly possible to do all...much less do it all, keep everyone happy, and keep wait times less than 15 min. I remember a survey a couple months ago where it was clear that one of the top problems in the pharmacy is lack of manpower. And the company response was that they needed to do better in explaining why that additional tech help was not the answer. In the latest bulletins, all I read is that they are going to help us work more efficiently. Meanwhile, I get to watch the Take Care nurse take an hour break everyday. She seems very happy with her job. She walks around the store talking to customers about OTC items, asks if they need their blood pressure checked. I graduated a little over 5 years ago and have seen it get worse and worse. Let's face it...we aren't professionals until we demand to be treated as such. We all want to help the patient. For most of us, that's the reason we spent all those years in school. But you have to have time to spend with the patient....when you are spending time on all those SDLs, printers and robots breaking down, responding to countless emails from district office, insurance issues, and the shear volume of prescriptions that you legally have to be perfect on....there is no time to spend with patients. And with everything else (staff cuts, flu shots, etc) I have to laugh sometimes when I hear that corporate is going to help us be more efficient. Like it's somehow always a problem with adherence to "workflow". God, if I hear that one more time...lol. Guess what, there is no workflow when you are always short one or two people. The filling tech is always making a decision as to whether they need to fill the 30 labels or type the 15-20 rx's since the other 2 techs are always dealing with customer issues. In the end I usually end up typing those scripts in between answering customer questions on the phone and the like. I'm in my 30s and I've got arthritis in my neck and shoulder from being on the phone constantly. I multitask to the point where it's dangerous sometimes...I just don't think it's worth it anymore. I love being a pharmacist....I like being a health care professional, but what "professional" do you know of that rings up toilet paper, toothpaste. The biggest percentage of advice that I give is where to find the aforementioned toilet paper and toothpaste. Now it's flu shot season...I have to give 3000 shots somehow and I have to smile, be friendly, get to know the customer and their medication history, and offer them other services. Listen, I'm all for the flu shots, MTM, etc....I just need some help! Or at least do away with some of those God awful KPIs. All those people with less than 5 minutes on wait times are either a) somehow cheating the numbers or b) they have no customers. Stop comparing me to them and realize that everything that you have piled onto me to do means that it takes longer. You should realize that the only motivation that I need to move faster is the lady screaming at me at the counter to do so....I don't need the added stress of proving myself with a abstract, flawed number. Sorry to put you guys through that, but I think it's time to hangup the towel and do something else. As much as I have loved working at Walgreens (and I work hard for Walgreens) I think it's time for something different. Maybe nursing....haha..since I even answer the phone calls for the nurse since they don't answer their own calls. Here's an idea....let's all band together as pharmacists and DEMAND better treatment. If all the pharmacists in the country banded together they would listen.
Why...oh why...is there such a shroud of secrecy around all of WAG's plans for the POWER "project"? I work at one of Florida's pilot stores for this program and we have watched the "powers that be" come in and remove over 1/2 of our equipment (phones, computers, scales, etc) they closed our in window and consultation wndow, the "PTB" took half of our staff and cut the hours of those that were left huddled and shivering in the corner. The "PTB" took our scripts so they could pay a third party to bring them back to us the next day, they made us shove autofill and express pay down our patrons throats. They threw us into a blender, scrambled us terribly and now some 18 months later they are changing it all again, our in-window is back to open (we have no computer there anymore so we just walk the extra steps back and forth) we now have the assistant mangers handlig the filling ( I am still utterly dumbfounded on this 1) our rx's are no longer filled off site ( so long CPO bottles) and the new version of IC+ (released today) is sending us our typing back (glanced at F1s today and it was 23 - ummm "WTF"?) I feel like a guinea pig in some sort of reality social experiment. What is going on? We get no information or support.
Why...oh why...is there such a shroud of secrecy around all of WAG's plans for the POWER "project"? I work at one of Florida's pilot stores for this program and we have watched the "powers that be" come in and remove over 1/2 of our equipment (phones, computers, scales, etc) they closed our in window and consultation wndow, the "PTB" took half of our staff and cut the hours of those that were left huddled and shivering in the corner. The "PTB" took our scripts so they could pay a third party to bring them back to us the next day, they made us shove autofill and express pay down our patrons throats. They threw us into a blender, scrambled us terribly and now some 18 months later they are changing it all again, our in-window is back to open (we have no computer there anymore so we just walk the extra steps back and forth) we now have the assistant mangers handlig the filling ( I am still utterly dumbfounded on this 1) our rx's are no longer filled off site ( so long CPO bottles) and the new version of IC+ (released today) is sending us our typing back (glanced at F1s today and it was 23 - ummm "WTF"?) I feel like a guinea pig in some sort of reality social experiment. What is going on? We get no information or support.
I have heard from serveral sources that Walgreens is preparing to end the Power program. I'm still not sure if this is true, but I am starting to see the signs. 75 people from the Resolution dept at the CPO were just transferred to the data entry dept. All Resolution pharmacists and specialists along with data review pharmacists were not scheduled to work July 4, and they will also not work Labor Day. The stores will be handling these duties on their own. For a long time, they have only been hiring part timers at the CPO. From what I've heard, the call center will be first to go, followed by resolution, central fill, and finally data entry. Also, somewhere along the lines of like half the team leads at the CPO have been demoted to specialists. Team leads are salaried at $40k.
I say good riddance. I would love to go back to a store. Half the calls I answer at the call center begin with "Are you actually in my pharmacy, or at the call center?.... Could you transfer me to my pharmacy?" Seems like such a waste....
Power is one thing and one thing only- a cost savings measure. What do you think is Walgreen's biggest capital expenditure? If you think it's Greg Wasserman's salary and bonus you are tragically mistaken. It is pharmacist's salaries. Power is going to lead to 2 things. First is a reduction in pharmacy staff - pharmacists, techs and cashiers. Now I am a company employee, as well as a stock-holder, and have done anything the company asks: MTM, immunizations, diabetes clinics, double shifts, overnights, weeks at other stores in 2 states, verifying for other stores, waits in under 14 minutes etc. I feel that I am a good employee but that all goes by the wayside when power comes to my state (and it will). I have done all that is asked (and more), but basically some DM is going to say that I have x number of pharmacists and I only need y number of pharmacists. My job, your job, it doesn't matter- it's goodbye, so long, its been fun, don't call us we'll call you. Let's not forget that a company is made up of individuals, working for the greater good of making a profit. Secondly, and probably just as important. For those that are kept on at the store level, yes you will have more time for patients and patient care, but you'll be doing it at a cash register (don't doubt me, I've seen the business model). So you've gone to school somewhere between 4 and 6 years and now you are nothing but a $55 an hour cashier. Period. Power is going to set pharmacy back 20 years. I want to ask Greg or Kermit when are they going to put soda fountains back in the stores so we can make a few rootbeer floats when the kids get off of school. It's really time for Walgreens pharmacists, as well as techs, to grow a set (pardon my French) and vote someone on the Board of Directors to look out for us. People think about it, all of us combined have more shares than all the big wigs in Dearfield put together. Greg did a commercial last flu season where he said something to the effect that he's also a pharmacist. Probably so. But he's not doing anything that is going to help the company with the power push. In the long run they'll be able to say well we tried it and lost a lot of good people in the process.
[quote=CPO_Slave;15437856]I have heard from serveral sources that Walgreens is preparing to end the Power program. I'm still not sure if this is true, but I am starting to see the signs. 75 people from the Resolution dept at the CPO were just transferred to the data entry dept. All Resolution pharmacists and specialists along with data review pharmacists were not scheduled to work July 4, and they will also not work Labor Day. The stores will be handling these duties on their own. For a long time, they have only been hiring part timers at the CPO. From what I've heard, the call center will be first to go, followed by resolution, central fill, and finally data entry. Also, somewhere along the lines of like half the team leads at the CPO have been demoted to specialists. Team leads are salaried at $40k.
Is this true? Does anyone else have an informed opinion?
I apologize. Let me re- word.
There is no plan there is a goal. The goal is to reduce the cost of doing business period. How that is accomplished really does not matter hence no plan. The whole program is just a big what if! With no sound thinking before execution. That's why you have all these problems, the plan is to troubleshoot as you go along. So the few that meet these goals only prove to the creators something maybe working here. Thats why it seems majority of what has been directed to stores in terms of goals have been just insane.
Okay, as a CPO employee, allow me to shed some light on what life is really like there. Just for some background info, I was a tech in the store for many years prior to transferring to Power.
I work in PCC (the call center part of Power). It is absolutely miserable. We are graded very strictly on our quality and average handle time. We are only allowed an average handle time of 83 seconds per call which requires "politely interrupting" customers when they begin to ramble.
There is a print out with a script we must read from when we interrupt.
When inputting refills for a patient, we must say, "We expect this to be ready for you tomorrow." NOT using the word "expect" is a 5 point deduction on our quality score. Even if we see there is a TPR and we know for certain this med won't be ready when they come in to pick it up, we still must say "We expect to have this ready for you tomorrow." Using the word "expect" doesn't emphasize a promise. Then of course they respond with "ummm I need this TODAY.. I'm sick!" So then we respond with, "We expect this to be ready in 1 hour." Again, even if we see it won't be ready, we must still say that. It's a don't ask, don't tell policy. They even tell us that in training! AND, we must use the caller's name twice in every call, whether it's mom, dad, sister, mother or brother of the patient. If we forget to use the name twice, we go on "Step 1."
There is no time to breathe between calls. They have it staffed with just the right amount of people to where there is always a constant influx of calls. As soon as the call ends, the next one beeps right in. It is absolutely exhausting, and we sit there for up to 3 hours or longer with no break.
Employees are allowed about 2-5 minutes a day for bathroom time. You must have an adherence rate of at least 95%, or you will be sent packing. The computer tracks every time you log out.
Morale is extremely low at the CPO. It's an extremely depressing place (even with the iPods that are allowed in the data entry department).
The managers try to make it look like a fun place to work with millions of balloons and ribbons plastered all over the working areas. Pictures of employees who have long since been fired still remain on the walls to make it seem like such a happy place. It's all phony, and no one buys it.
And YES, 95% of the employees working at the CPO have never stepped foot in a pharmacy and their previous job was working the drive thru at Wendy's. I am one of a rare breed at that place.
CPO_Slave: Any updates from CPO or Power?
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Let's set the record straight
[quote=CPO_Slave;15437856]I have heard from serveral sources that Walgreens is preparing to end the Power program. I'm still not sure if this is true, but I am starting to see the signs. 75 people from the Resolution dept at the CPO were just transferred to the data entry dept. All Resolution pharmacists and specialists along with data review pharmacists were not scheduled to work July 4, and they will also not work Labor Day. The stores will be handling these duties on their own. For a long time, they have only been hiring part timers at the CPO. From what I've heard, the call center will be first to go, followed by resolution, central fill, and finally data entry. Also, somewhere along the lines of like half the team leads at the CPO have been demoted to specialists. Team leads are salaried at $40k. 
Is this true?
Does anyone else have an informed opinion?
