I survived the purge but left the company as a result of the fallout on my own anyway. In my current position I work with rotations of pharmacy externs. They all tell me that their professors warn them in pharmacy school not to work at Walmart because of the way they treated their legacy pharmacists a few years back. I actually received a headhunter flyer a couple of weeks ago that offered sign-on bonuses up to $30,000 and relocation assistance. The word is out. Only the desperate choose to go to work for Walmart these days.
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In reality, the pharmacy situation from years back was considerably less complicated than I’ve read here. After numerous studies into what was happening in all areas of pharmacy, they discovered a substantial amount of long running, deeply rooted bad local practices, local decisions and home grown processes that were haphazardly implemented over time. Ok yes, it’s true, home office tried (and failed) numerous times to issue process changes to standardize all processes across the board, and at all locations so they dovetailed into the fed/state regulations. Unfortunately, most corporate mandated work process changes were ignored at the stores and mis reported because it was seen as unnecessary and bothersome by local associates. Now, an additional study at almost the same time developed a new organizational structure to ensure process compliance, reduce risk and eliminate the need for local process changes.
In the end, given the potential legal exposure with pharmaceutical services, Walmart had the right to adjust their workforce to ensure their new corporate-wide processes were understood and executed as expected.
And by way, most pharmacies were untouched. The ones that fell in line and followed the new guidelines and mandates were fine. The ones that did not were impacted. What do you expect?
Walmart cooperate troll, doing damage control. The truth is Walmart got rid of all the older employees with years of experience who had gotten to the top of the vacation and pay scales. Walmart did this to intimidate the remaining pharmacist into working with less help both pharmacist and technician. They cut hours out, without replacing them with other staff. When they did replace the staff it was part time at a much lower wage and no benefits. They wanted to hire minority staff to have the appearance of having demographics exceeding the demographics of normal society!
It probably should read “Scurge of the Pharmacy”.
There was rampant incompetence, internal shrink, performance issues and bad attitudes that permeated that area. Yes, resource actions were taken. Some people must still be hung up on it to be bringing this up after 5 years. You would think they could move on by now.