Jobs, Wages, & Staffing Shortages, Oh My

Hi, I’m Tisha with Enchanted 3 Boutique. I want to start by apologizing to all our blog followers. Lately, I have not been writing a blog consistently, and here I am today deviating from the blog schedule we sent out in our newsletter. Today, I really want to address the humongous elephant in the room and talk about what Is going on in the work force! 

The staffing crisis is real! Everyone sees it, everyone feels it. There are too many jobs and not enough people willing and able to fill those roles! I see over a dozen help wanted signs everyday. Companies are offering sign on bonuses and higher wages. When I was in high school I thought I was rolling in money when I made $5.16 an hour. Now you have fast food places offering $500 sign on bonuses and $15 an hour. It seems that we went from zero to 60 real quick. When I was first starting out you took whatever hours and pay was offered because if you wanted a job you were going to start out working crappy hours for minimum wage. If you worked hard & you stayed to gain in seniority you were rewarded with better hours and small pay raises. Now, it seems like applicants are coming in with demands of top wages and banker’s hours. In most industries, especially the healthcare and service industries, nights, weekends, and crappy pay are part of the job description. It seems the expectations have changed and it’s now the new job candidates that are interviewing the employer to see if they even want to work there because they have so many other choices and opportunities! 

You all know that I am a pharmacy technician by trade. I’ve been a pharm tech for the past 15 years. I love it. For the last few years my job has evolved from the daily operations of working in a pharmacy to a leadership position where I manage our trainee and preceptor programs, write and manage a schedule of over 50 technicians, and just put out daily fires as they come up. Over the last year, as it has in all industries, staffing and hiring has been extremely difficult. Pharmacy Technicians, since 2015, have to be licensed healthcare professionals. This makes it difficult to find quality candidates since there are very few schools that offer a training program. In addition to that, most people do not even know what a technician does, and thinks all pharmacy is staffed by pharmacists and they just count out pills at the local retail store. The entire profession has done a terrible job of promoting ourselves and what we do. People don’t know unless you tell them right? It’s even worse for hospital pharmacies because they are behind four walls and most people do not even know we are there or what we do so it’s difficult to find people to train & hire for a profession they did not even knew existed. 

On top of that, where did the work ethic go? Where is the pride of a job well done? People call in, don’t show up, and when they do they would rather be on their phones watching tik tok or scrolling through Facebook then actually working for the wage they are earning. I’m not saying it’s everyone, and I know some people are tired and fed up, so they have just stopped caring. Some feel like people aren’t being held accountable because the employees that call out, or leave early, that are on their phone all the time are still there making the same wage. With the lack of candidates can anyone afford to lose those employees? But in the long run is it causing your good employees to leave in droves? Is it a generational thing? Or is it just the world we now live in? 

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I do think it’s a combination of all of those things. I’ll tell you that I am terrified of what it is happening to our work force and afraid of how much more deterioration it’s going to go through. I’m going to say that I do think this all started with participation trophies with a steady decline from there. We started rewarding people for just showing up. Why work hard when you can get the same rewards for doing little to nothing? Hard work used to be the back bone of America, now I think there are more people that put more effort into avoiding work than it would actually take to get the job done. 

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is just a fluke in our history and our next generations will put our hard work & work ethic to shame! I challenge them to do so! Get out there and prove that we are still a country that is built by the blood, sweat, & tears of our countrymen! What are your  thoughts? Is hard work a thing of the past or are we just taking a breather before we roll up our sleeves and get the job done? We would love to hear from you! Share your thoughts & comments below!