In any industry, it costs money to make money, and one of the most important investment decisions you’ll make as a business owner is how you manage your staffing demands.
Staffing a pharmacy can cost a pretty penny, so understanding upfront labor costs is important to develop an accurate business strategy. Below is a breakdown of factors that impact staffing costs for you to keep in mind while planning a budget for your pharmacy.
Understand Your Basic Staffing Costs and Needs
A 2019 NCPA Digest report found that in 2018, independent pharmacy owners typically employed 8.1 non-owner, full-time equivalent employees per location. It also determined that hourly wages for staff pharmacists and technicians were increasing year-over-year, with staff pharmacist wages rising to $58.82, pharmacy technician wages to $15.56, and clerk cashier wages to $11.37 per hour.
Naturally, these wages will vary by local market factors, but they’re useful for building an initial budgeting framework. For example, your staffing costs will look significantly different if you have a lower ratio of staff pharmacists to pharmacy technicians compared to the reverse scenario. Take a look at the services your customers typically tend to ask for to evaluate what kind of positions you need to fill.
Anticipating the services your clients will require and how much it will cost you to employ the staff to meet those needs is a good first step in drafting an accurate budget plan. Most importantly – remember to factor in the cost of paying yourself!
Consider Your Expected Foot Traffic
It’s impossible to predict the exact ebb and flow of foot traffic that your pharmacy will experience on a daily basis, but analyzing key indicators will give you a decent estimate of your general demand.
Do you anticipate that you’ll see more patients during the week or on the weekends? Is there a particular time of day when patients may flock to your doors? If you have access, evaluate the pharmacy’s current sales volume by hour, day, and season to identify what may be your busiest windows and match employee schedules to maximize efficiency.
Once you have a grasp on how busy you expect your pharmacy to be, you can adjust staffing models accordingly to reduce spending on unnecessary wages.
