Pros
An opportunity to learn TONNES about pharmacy. Even if your role is only selling over the counter medicines and not dispensing, you will still pick up a lot of really useful info about medications and conditions. I really enjoyed the work. If you have a good attention to detail and a tenacious work ethic you’ll like it. Tasks include creating blister packs, labelling prescriptions through the computer system, selecting medications, managing stock of medications. serving customers (selling medications and handing out prescriptions). If you like keeping your brain and hands busy then this is the job for you. I had an absolutely amazing team and resident pharmacist who I still consider good friends. You will work closely together so a strong relationship and good attitude is vital. You will develop to have a lot of responsibility within the team which means you can really become passionate about the work. 95% of the time you’ll get away from your shift on time as my team respected this. It looks good on the CV if you have the opportunity to move from a store role. 10% discount + double discount on certain weekends.
Cons
Absolutely 0 career progression currently. You will need to complete a national pharmacy qualification which takes up to 2 years but there is no incentive to complete this as you will earn exactly the same as a newcomer/any other store colleague who doesn’t have any required qualifications for their role. I have heard rumours that ASDA is considering a payscale depending on your qualifications but who knows how many years this will take. There is no opportunity to become eg a pharmacy technician like other chain pharmacies provide. Even an equivalent of a pharmacy section leader is needed. I felt like I performed that job with the amount of training I did as well as rota management but unless you really love your team I doubt a normal person would pick up these responsibilities. ASDA didn’t recruit efficiently for a resident pharmacist leaving the team with only one resident pharmacist for months on end - there still isn’t one a year later. Business therefore relied on expensive locums to fill gaps and caused overwork and closures in the pharmacy. They obviously need to increase salary to attract pharmacists. Felt undervalued by ASDA due to low pay when you take on a lot of responsibility for patient safety and when you’re trained you have a lot of knowledge. Sometimes there was tension between the store management and the pharmacy as store management would push on strict boundaries that pharmacies need to adhere to. Computer system crashed at least once daily. Unpaid breaks. Pay rises are not keeping up with cost of living. Store management steer pretty clear from pharmacy unless needed (pro and con!). Bad customers but that’s to be expected.