Walgreens Boots Alliance Employee Reviews about "pharmacist"

Pros

Good pay Good amount of holidays Flexible hours Great canteen facilities Lots of friendly colleagues

Cons

Age discrimination (especially towards young workers) Hostile 'professional staff '- ACPTs, Pharmacists and Engineers Management can be unfair and often times lack good communication Lots of over ambitious colleagues clinging onto tiny bits of power from extra responsibilities Working environment can be toxic at times especially due to all the cynical attitudes there Training and NVQ attainment is a sluggish and unorganised process (if you aren't full time it's even worse)

Pros

A large corporate with decent peer support and some fantastic individuals that work at various levels. The pharmacist managers, or those with pharmacy background are leaving in droves and the workforce is being de-skilled. The non-pharmacist management is highly varied in its capability to lead such a large pharmacy brand - with recent experience being disastrous, but past experience being extremely good. It is obvious to see working day to day on the job. From the outside, its amazing peers and dispensary staff at all levels that keeps most of our local stores afloat. The public may catch on soon. I just hope that the diligent and skilled governance managers working at area and regional level are fighting strongly to maintain a 'pharmacy led' health and beauty aspect of this so-called heritage British institution.

Cons

You are a cog in a huge machine, that is relentlessly marching towards something you ''won't recognise in 10 years'' (#quote from C&D), consequences be damned. The pharmacist forum, internal networking and raising concerns does little to mitigate the damage done to the local population that you serve. To make this sound less harsh, I would like to stress that change, which revitalises a workplace and challenges practice in order to improve the proficiency, professionalism, reputation and future-proofing the pharmacy profession is good. However I am put off by the middle management disregard for genuine (i.e. those that walk the talk) work done on the ground by all the hard working dispensing team.

Pros

Pension scheme is generous.

Cons

Low salary. Too many tiers of management - especially non-pharmacist managers. Too much emphasis on services.

Pros

I really enjoyed the interview and was looking forward to joining the Company

Cons

I started my new job with Boots as a Pharmacy Dispenser on Monday and left never to return on Thursday evening! Although I am a trained and qualified pharmacy dispenser I was new to Boots. My first day consisted of being left on my own in a small office to go through all the legals on the computer. I wasn’t phased by this as I realised pretty quickly the place was short staffed and I’m a big girl I don’t need babysitting. I had high hopes for Tuesday! Went in only to be taken to a room upstairs and told to dispense weekly prescriptions. There was no equipment and I wasn’t shown where anything was. Anyway, I got on and did it. The afternoon was spent in the dispensary downstairs dispensing prescriptions. Stock was left in boxes and not put away so I had to trawl through loads of stock to find the right meds. This took ages! Has Wednesday off. Went in Thursday only to find I was expected to cover the front of the dispensary with 5 minutes training on systems! Not surprisingly I didn’t do well! Back to trawling through boxes and the pharmacist moaning about being behind!!! Never going back. Don’t work for Boots.

Pros

Can’t really say they got much right, ripped gullible people with advantage points countering sky-high retail prices. Shop elsewhere for better value!

Cons

Everything was a con.Ignorant, bullying, aggressive managers. Superintendent office is a puppet position with no real power, overruled by owners. Systems always changing and getting more complex and useless. Avoid at all costs, new Pharmacists, don’t get sucked in, go USA, Canada, anywhere else than Boots.Everything was a con.Ignorant, bullying, aggressive managers. Superintendent office is a puppet position with no real power, overruled by owners. Systems always changing and getting more complex and useless. Avoid at all costs, new Pharmacists, don’t get sucked in, go USA, Canada, anywhere else than Boots.

Pros

The company is unlikely to go under in the next year or two. You get paid if youre permenant staff (maybe not if you're a Christmas temp or locum).

Cons

Dramatically and dangerously understaffed Staff are untrained, often illegally working the counter. Managers are unskilled non-pharmacists with minimal knowledge of law or ethics in pharmacy A pharmacist risks their license just signing on here Profits before patients Company promises services it cant deliver Doesnt provide staff to support pharmacist, yet bullies pharmacist if not enough services done. No respect for the person taking on all the legal liability Lazy arrogant staff on minwage who are 'turned off' Patients are permitted to abuse nhs and staff and boots encourage this and do not support staff No cctv or security guard. Staff are sitting ducks All benefits and bonuses removed, no reward for staff loyalty. No pay rise for pharmacist in yrs. Pay now £15 to £16 an hr. Relief workers treated like trash and sent far and wide No staff parking Dismal staff rooms. Just atrocious lack of facilities Dirty, crowded, musty work space, on your feet all day. Messy. Excessive systems that slow process right down. Duplicate data for head office causing staff massive stress Greedy managed repeat service which is an utter fiasco and so poorly maintained it is dangerous to patients Staff leave as quick as they arrive, so no one ever knows how to do their job. The pharmacist will do everything for everyone else. Wretched place to be trapped for 10 hour shifts

Pros

We get wages we get wages we get wages we get wages We get staff discount we get staff discount. A pension if you are in one.

Cons

Colleagues are worked into the ground. Forget about any work-life balance if your a manager or pharmacist. We are all worked like dogs. Many go off long-term sick and some never return, being left as empty husks when all the goodness has been beaten out of them. Boots, like many big companies, is like a giant ship, steaming ahead, and any casualties are thrown overboard. Boots may get its colleagues to do a lot of charity work but within its ownership there is no 'kindness'.

Pros

Opportunity to work with some great people who are genuinley interested and fully invested in caring for the public. People who gladly give up their own time, and are happy to go home exhausted to care for their patients.

Cons

Targets are put in place that are almost impossible at times to meet whilst providing good care for customers. MUR targets are still very much in place and weekly emails from area management wanting explanations of why you have only delivered one MUR per day are common. Performance evaluations of pharmacists take little into account aside from how well you have grown the profitability of your store in terms of items growth, loss, and of course MURs. Forget about being branded a satisfactory or good pharmacist in the company unless you are willing deliver MURs to customers who don't necessarily need or want them. Staffing levels are at times verging on dangerous, it's not uncommon for a moderately busy store to operate for a day with only a pharmacist and a dispenser. All of this is leading pharmacists leave the company, retire, or deregister completely due to unmanageable stress levels. Oh and forget about life outside of work, holidays need to be booked 1 year in advance and most pharmacists work 3 in every 4 weekends.