To live, to work, and to play: the trifecta for workforce resilience to job demands pressure in community pharmacies

Worker well-being depends on the physical, psychosocial, and organizational aspects of work, and can be positive or negative. The positive aspects of worker well-being include job satisfaction and a sense that one’s work is meaningful, while the negative aspects of worker well-being include feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, chronic disinterest in working with patients or colleagues, and a sense of reduced professional efficacy. While positive worker well-being can be fostered by working conditions and relationships that enable workers to function at their best and use their full range of skills and training, high job demands contribute to negative worker well-being. Job demands refer to those physical, social, or organizational aspects of a job that require sustained physical or mental effort and therefore are associated with exhaustion and disengagement.

Increase in job demands on community pharmacy workforce is related to the shift in community pharmacy practice away from the traditional dispensing-dominant practice model, more toward providing services like expanded immunization offerings, addiction treatment, and screening for depression and anxiety. Although some of these new practice models hold benefits for both pharmacists and patients, there is a need for mechanisms to build workforce resilience to the associated increase in job demands pressure to prevent negative well-being outcomes.

The objective of this study was to provide community pharmacies with strategic insights for building workforce resilience to job demands pressure from both the traditional dispensing-dominant practice model and newer value-based care practice models.