Empower Your Pharmaceutical Sales Team with a Standard Operating Procedure

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hello again and welcome back to my channel some of you may have just started your roles as training pharmacists in your foundation year this might even be your first job the start of the working world can be both scary but pretty exciting as well whether it's your first day at a single employee small store or a huge international firm employing thousands first impressions can leave a big impact for both the employee and the employer how does the business operate what are the things you need to know about the job what are the roles expected in any business there's a lot to go through and probably quite a bit of paperwork that comes with that too something common among workplaces is to have a set of procedures for reference and to follow often known as standard operating procedures or sops these are usually documents that highlight some key processes highlighting who's responsible for what and how to do things in january 2005 the government introduced a requirement for all pharmacies to have sops in place to cover some of the key dispensing process operations of the pharmacy if you don't know what dispensing is maybe click on this video for a refresher it may help at some point this year so what's the point of sop well an easy way to think about it is i want you to imagine something that you know how to do pretty well let's say you're the master of making a great boiled egg sandwich now you've got to be somewhere you don't have time to make them so you need someone else to make these sandwiches for an event you've got coming up in the same way you make them when you're not there how would you explain the procedure or in other words write the recipe for them to follow now if any of you have tried to follow recipes online or take instructions from someone as to how to make something you'll know this is harder than you think some might be quite specific saying you need a deluxe non-stick stainless steel saucepan and lid only available in three stores in the uk and absolutely nothing else will do another might just tell you to put the eggs in a pan and boil now depending on your prior experience you may need a different level of detail in knowing how to proceed best here someone with a lot of experience may not need it to be explained to them of what it means to boil an egg whereas someone with no experience may need to know step by step what boiling an egg means a more detailed recipe may have all the steps faqs and all the details you could possibly need whereas a simpler recipe may assume some level of foundation or experience so which approach is better it's a tough call the more thorough it is covering every possible detail may be great for reference it can be quite a lot to get your head around and be overwhelming quickly yet one that's too simple may leave many questions and not be true to how the process is actually run too complex or too simple in that whoever follows the recipe can't make the eggs how you want it going back to sops now it's usually the superintendent pharmacist the one with the overall responsibility that makes sure these procedures are in place now a good procedure will probably involve a balance of both clearly defining who does what concise instructions as well as having points of reference or supporting documents if needed that can be looked into all written in an easy to understand form so if you like the sops are the recipes or instructions so that anyone can follow them to be able to carry out a process depending on where you work there may be tens or even hundreds of these and you may be asked to sit in a room and to sign off on all these sops this in itself can be pretty draining so let's take a step back a bit what are some of the benefits of sop well sops drive improvement in processes in various ways such as number one controlling variation from business to business or pharmacy to pharmacy because there's a standard procedure it means that if you're going from one store to another this sop can be referred to to see how each place operates number two acts as an objective standard for feedback and evaluation you see the more engaging an sop is it makes it kind of like a positive loop system a person following the procedure that's engaged in it can give feedback and evaluate it this goes back to those that issued the sop and they can improve it based on the feedback number three sops promotes safety well think about it having documented procedures of how things need to be done means that if they're followed errors are less likely to be made number four improves training better sops mean better training for the staff if an sop can serve more than just being a tick box exercise it can drive a framework for what the staff need to know for the job and how to excel in it number five improves communication among staff staff that are unsure of what to do can refer to the sop and discuss it among themselves if they're things they don't understand and number six it serves as a focal point for improvement for any successful business the goal is to work towards constantly improving and consistency in the processes sops can really help that because they set the standard for the process and the basis of how it can be improved so as you can see on paper sop is actually a good thing like many realities though it becomes difficult to see that when you're locked away just trying to work through passages of text which brings us on to the next point how can we get more out of sops i'm going to break this down into two what the employer or the manager wants and what the employee wants of course each workplace and every individual is different but hopefully by understanding the two sides of the coin we can see how we can use sops to better our working experience for the employee or the person learning there's a lot to get used to in a new place and sometimes you really don't know what to do because everyone's busy and you may have not been properly trained yet to know what jobs to do depending on the staff or tutor that day or early in your training they might not always be available to help and you may not want to bother them but you don't want to just sit around ideally you want to be able to pick up things as soon as possible so that you can work independently without needing to always be directed from a manager's perspective you as a manager you're already busy as nice and as approachable as you may think you always are and as available as you say you are the reality is you don't need constant interruptions to your tasks for questions ideally sops can be referred to as the first port of call if you know that an employee is accessing information that accurately reflects how the business should be run it saves you the key things that are invaluable your efforts and time of repeating the same things over and over again and money because time is money and for both the employee and the manager accessibility is key if there are hundreds of sops stashed away in a hard to navigate folder somewhere in a back office this provides huge barriers to them being useless ok so practically speaking a final word on sops having looked at both perspectives the aim is to have sops in conjunction with on-the-job training so that you're engaging with a procedure alongside having a written document for reference as with many things you'll find may ease your working life as well as life in general communication is key here are some things worth seeing if you can discuss with a line manager where appropriate number one [Music] are you able to space out the sign off of sops or take sops with you when you're undertaking a task rather than signing off on them on the go number two while you're working through the sops make notes for any questions you might have for procedures that don't make sense ask your line manager or senior member of the team if it's okay to ask them the questions in one go at a time when it's quiet and number three if they have a facility to allow you to access the sops remotely ask if this is an option if you feel you are not able to understand much from it in store now with any role training requires patience and time you're not going to know the ins and outs of the business from the first day and as with anything it's a process but a real measure of how well you know what process is how would you write the sop c use sops as a tool to check your understanding and this can be used for essays as well as for knowing things in the working world if there's not an sop already in place for something how would you write the sop how are you able to explain your understanding hope is that when we rethink about sops and training we can make the process better for us and our teams in the midst of a hectic working day it can be easy to lose sight of why we are doing what we do anyway i hope you found this brief introduction helpful and wishing you all the best with your role what's been your experience with sop if any at all how would the training experience be better for you as always if you could like share comment and subscribe that would really encourage for more regular content to be uploaded in the meantime good luck and hopefully we'll see you soon