The best way to learn is from the success of others.
Especially if they’re multibillion-dollar successful.
Take a cue from Google. Google’s former human resources executive Laszlo Bock hasn’t been shy about sharing the management practices that make Google so successful and its employees so satisfied.
While your independent community pharmacy doesn’t have everything in common with the colossus conglomerate, you can still apply Google’s proven management principles to your small business operations.
And experience some of the same success on a smaller scale.
Here are five of Google’s management practices to implement in your pharmacy today.
1. Let employees have a say
Many of Google’s company practices began with the ideas of regular employees.
Google has made its employees’ voices a staple of the company culture. One program introduced a forum for the employees to express their concerns and frustrations and work on solutions together. And Google actually reads them—and listens.
The result? Better morale, systems and processes.
How you can apply it: Give permission—and provide a platform—for your employees to speak their minds. This communication will help generate beneficial ideas for your pharmacy and boost employee morale.
2. Make your mission meaningful
Surprisingly, Google’s mission says nothing about money or profits or shareholders. Instead it’s about making a difference to people in the world.
A moral mission gives employees meaning in their work. They’re more motivated to make a positive difference than to meet monetary goals.
But that in turn will produce financial success, as Google has shown.
And it’ll attract high quality talent who want fulfillment in their job.
How you can apply it: Does your pharmacy have a mission? If not, create a mission to motivate your employees. Think about a mission that will make their work feel meaningful. And, write it down!
3. Don’t hire based on GPAs
Hiring managers commonly take an applicant’s GPA into consideration. If the applicant didn’t do good work in school, they won’t do good work at the company, right?
Bock says that, except for new graduates, GPAs and test scores mean nothing. He told the New York Times that after about three years at Google, his employees’ work performance has no relation to how they performed in school.
And that’s partly because Google grows, trains and educates its employees.
Google also evaluates interviewees based on behavior reviews, with each interview using the same rubric. For example, they might ask the applicant to explain a time he solved a difficult analytical problem. Those types questions will tell you much more about the applicant than test scores.
How you can apply it: When you hire at your pharmacy, do you have effective processes in place to mold your employees into the best they can be?
4. Be transparent
Being transparent is scary. It makes you vulnerable. That’s why so many companies keep their employees uninformed.
But for Google, transparency is a cornerstone. For example, its employees have access to the code, product road maps, and employee and team quarterly goals. Everyone can see what everyone else is working on.
It’s a sharing culture where employees trust one another.
One reason Google does this is to fend off internal rivalries and create understanding of goals.
How you can apply it: When people feel trusted, they feel empowered. And when they share everything, they work better as a team. Take steps to be more transparent with your employees.
5. Be consistent in management
When your employees don’t know what their manager wants, they don’t know what to do.
They’ll become frustrated, which will worsen productivity and morale.
Through experience, Google learned that consistent and fair leadership decisions give employees freedom. So, they’re not always worried about whether they’re doing the right thing. If the parameters are clear, then employees can have liberty to move around within them.
Which, Bock says, leads to better employee performance, retention and happiness.
How you can apply it: Set clear expectations for each job at your pharmacy, whether that’s pharmacy technician, front-end clerk, pharmacist-in-charge or pharmacist. Write these expectations down in an employee handbook.
Take Google’s success and create a successful pharmacy with some simple new management practices.
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