Pharmacists are among the highest-paid healthcare professionals in the US, but the industry has nevertheless struggled to attract and retain talent in recent years.

The Covid-19 pandemic placed additional demands on pharmacists, as they were asked to manage new testing protocols and vaccinations without additional staff support. These pressures led to walkouts at major retail pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens. At the same time, fewer students started enrolling in pharmacy school. The number of applications to colleges of pharmacy declined by more than 64,000 between the 2011–2012 and 2021–2022 school years, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

As a result, many pharmacies are now facing a labor shortage, with the number of open jobs outpacing expected graduates from pharmacy school programs. “We know that pharmacists are critical to the healthcare of our communities, and we don’t have enough in the marketplace,” Sal Venegas, SVP, talent management for Walgreens, told HR Brew.

Walgreens is seeking to tackle this issue by covering prerequisite courses for employees interested in pursuing a pharmacy degree. The program is expanding after a successful pilot, and Walgreens hopes it will help the chain strengthen its pharmacist talent pipeline, Venegas said.

For more on how Walgreens is seeking to address the pharmacist shortage, keep reading here.—CV

No one understands the value of employee resource groups (ERGs) quite like Maceo Owens.

She’s benefitted from them as an employee. She’s advocated for them as a lead and HR professional. And she’s helped build them as the founder and CEO of her consultancy, the ERG Movement. Each of these experiences have informed how she sees, and helps organizations to see, ERGs.

“I really like to lean into them as internal marketing engines that just leverage community to help people to love a company more or to want to stay,” she said during a recent episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast. “And executives,” she later added, “they typically understand that concept.”

Owens sat down with Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew, to discuss how HR can best champion ERGs within their organizations.

For more from our conversation with Owens, keep reading here.—VV

When it comes to IT jobs, there’s a huge gap between answering help-desk tickets and helping drive the AI revolution. That gap could be the root cause of a lack of motivation among IT pros.

Compared to their peers in other industries, IT professionals are among the least motivated, according to a poll by consultancy Full Potential Group in partnership with Motivational Maps.

In a recent IT Brew poll, 29% of 541 respondents said their motivation only came in “occasional waves,” while 23% said they were consistently bored. Just 21% reported being motivated “all the time.”

For more on why these professionals are struggling with motivation at work, keep reading on IT Brew.—CN

Hiring should not require a spreadsheet, a flowchart, and a group therapy session. On April 21, Daniel Chait, CEO and co-founder of Greenhouse Software, will show how to build a hiring process that works for candidates and recruiters alike. Register now.

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