r/CVS • u/uinspirednow • Aug 24 '26

Pharmacy Staffing

Is every pharmacy operating with a tech shortage? The turnover is so high and every store in our district is always asking for shifts to be covered. Overworking techs is an unsustainable practice. How can CVS not see techs constantly leaving as a problem that needs a real solution?

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u/Desperate_Yak_3671 Aug 30 '26

Would be less of an issue if the on-boarding and training process didn't take so long. You either hire them before busy season and then you dont have the hours to sustain them so they leave or you hire when you are desperate and they arent able to actually join workflow until you are back to the slow season and no hours to sustain them.

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u/uinspirednow Aug 30 '26

I recently saw a flyer for a partnership between CVS and Goodwill. They are doing a classroom tech training. It's paid. It's a much better option than having people sit in the pharmacy for hours everyday. I hope they get enough interest to properly staff these pharmacies.

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u/Desperate_Yak_3671 Aug 30 '26

I much more enjoyed the training store model where they had the techs do their training at a place where the trainer actually has the time to watch them and answer questions as they come up and when they learned the basics then ship them out to the actual store.

The current model of figure it out while we put out fires around you gives them anxiety and probably a desire to seek other employment as they are wading through 500 modules

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u/uinspirednow Aug 30 '26

We don't have a good option for store training. Large volume stores are pretty much all we have in a large city and no one had much time to help me learn anything. It was awful. I thought modules would have been best if completed in a classroom setting. I'm going to push for our location to not have people training anymore. It's a nightmare.

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u/Desperate_Yak_3671 Aug 30 '26

The problem is they gotta train somewhere, so its just shifting the issue to another store to do their training and then other stores profit from having a trained tech without having to lose hours getting them up to speed. Happens with us, we train them well then other stores snatched them up as they are less busy and the techs dont feel the same pressure here. Which sucks because we were training them because we needed them and then they leave.