Motivating the Pharmacy Employee: McGregor’s Theories X and Y

Pharmacy managers generally are a pragmatic group, relying on experience to guide them in their day-to-day decisions. The idea of using management theory to deal with personnel problems, for example, may be quite foreign to them.
But many theoretical concepts can be applied to your practice. In the next tow issues we’ll explore two different motivational theories developed by management experts, illustrating by means of case studies their practical application to pharmacy management.

This month we’ll discuss McGregor’s Theory X and Y.
McGregor have outlined two different sets of assumptions that managers can make about employees. These tow hypotheses, which he calls Theory X and Theory Y, are opposites.
Theory X assumes that the average person dislikes work and if possible will avoid doing it. Because of this natural dislike of work, people must be coerced, manipulated, or even treated with punishment in order to motivate them. In fact, according to Theory X, The average worker prefers to be directed, avoids responsibility, has little ambition, but desires job security.
Managerial energy and direction therefore must center on providing incentives, direct rewards, treats or punishments.
According to Theory Y, work is as natural and activity as play or rest. Workers exercise self-direction and self-control to meet work objectives. Under proper conditions the average worker learns to seek and accept responsibility and to apply high levels of ingenuity and creativity to work-related problems. Theory Y further assumes that in many work environments the broad range of worker talents is incompletely utilized. Therefore to maximize worker productivity, all the manager need do is arrange job tasks and provide an environment that will allow the worker to take advantage of natural creative tendencies.
In general, three factors affect the manager’s decision to use a leadership style consistent with one theory over the other.
• The importance of results;
• The nature of the work to be done;
• Worker characteristics.

If these factors indicate that Theory X assumptions are correct then a more autocratic managerial style may be called for. On the other hand, if analysis of these factors favors Theory Y, then a more democratic or participative approach may be in order.
Theory X assumptions are more appropriate when successful completion of the work is crucial to the work of others, when the time deadline for completing the work is inflexible, and when the work itself is essential to the objectives of the organization. For example, let’s consider the task of maintaining an up-to-date adequate stock of prescription drugs. Clearly, successful completion of that task is crucial to the work of other people; if the work is not done, then the pharmacist will be unable to fill prescriptions. Time deadlines have some flexibility, but not to much; orders must be placed on certain times of the day, and even at certain times of the month to take maximum advantage of cash discounts. And finally, the work is obviously essential to the central objective of the pharmacy, i.e., providing patient care. Therefore in terms of the importance of results Theory X seems more appropriate.
If the work is routine and follows a fixed sequence and if the environment is stable again, Theory X might be the best one to use. In our example, the same procedure is followed each time the inventory is taken, and the same stock control cards are used for all of the prescription drug products. The steps are fixed; compared it to the minimum and maximum stock levels and the product’s minimum recorder point, and telephones or send in the order. The work is performed in an environment where few changes affecting the reorder process take place.

Theory X assumptions may be more appropriate if the persons performing the work are unskilled or inexperienced, have little training are new to the work setting or refuse to accept responsibility. Let’s look at two different people who might be asked to maintain the prescription drug inventory. One is a first-year pharmacy student who has never worked in a pharmacy before and has never taken an inventory. Since starting a few weeks ago this person is constantly asking you to check the adequacy of his work. The other employee is a pharmacist who has been working for you for the past five years, ever since he sold his own pharmacy and went into semiretirement. You consider him you “right-hand man,” and you know that you can count on him to make decisions in your absence. In most cases it’s probably a safe bet to apply Theory X assumptions to the student and Theory Y assumptions to the experienced pharmacist.
The situation may not always be so cut-and-dried, however When the signals are less clears, you should decide which assumptions are the most correct and then use a leadership style consistent with the assumptions.

CASE STUDY

Pharmacist Joe March owns and manages a large pharmacy with a “front end” of almost 10,000 square feet. He employs two pharmacist’s full time and one part time, as well as 15 other personnel including clerks, stock boys and a delivery driver. The pharmacists dispense 200 prescriptions a day. March’s turnover in personnel is extremely high. His approach to management is characterized by the following rules;

• Promptness, next to honesty, is the most important trait needed in a good employee. Both hourly employees and salaried pharmacist must use a time clock, and all employees must punch in and out when they take a break, although the fast pace of the pharmacy allows few such interruptions.

• He gives frequent, direct orders to all employees, and there is frequent checking of employees’ work – even veteran employees.

• Each time a delivery is made, the driver must report cash, distance traveled, and time spent.

For all this, the manager pays a good salary – considerably above average – but provides few additional benefits.
Ron Brown, the full-time senior pharmacist, is threatening to leave after five years’ work for Mach. Brown managed a pharmacy for eight years before coming to this job. He was attracted by the better hours that the staff position meant and was looking forward to being second in command. Everyone, including his boss, praises Brown’s work, especially his willingness to tackle the hard jobs – such as setting up a computer system.

Some of the senior nonprofessional staff members also are disgruntled. They feel that the quality of the newer clerks has diminished. The more experienced ones resent having management “look over their shoulder,” and as a result, several have quit. Mach is obviously a Theory X person. Despite the fact that he has many employees with different traits, he does not recognize that the work involved in operating a pharmacy varies widely.

There are three broad steps Mach can take to move away from Theory X and Theory Y:

• He should realign his thinking about the nature of people at work. He must begin to believe that there are times and places for less autocratic management.

• He should develop a flexible managerial style that matches the many different types of work and workers found in the pharmacy. He might be pleasantly surprised if he made some Theory Y assumptions. For example, a less autocratic style of leadership would be received as being a more “adult” way to deal with the more mature pharmacists and senior clerks. Their morale would improve, and they would be more creative and efficient. Such a move on Mach’s part could not only stop, but actually reverse, the high turnover pattern in senior employees. For the time being, however, Theory X assumptions may still be in order for the younger (high school age) clerks, although Mach should take advantage of every opportunity to make Theory Y assumptions about them too.

• He should implement Theory Y whenever there is no clear need to use Theory X. Even the newest and least experienced “high-schooler,” for instance, could be asked to draft and ad for a part-time position to be posted at school. Both the importance (especially if Mach makes sure he has a chance to change the ad before posting it) and the nature of the results would warrant use of Theory Y, even assuming the young employee has never written such an ad before. Moreover, with this approach, Mach is likely to attract and retain ambitious, inventive, and responsible clerks, who will be allowed to test their own innate abilities fully and to grow as a result.

If Joe Mach is able to follow these three recommendations, he will likely see an improvement in employee morale with subsequent increase in productivity, especially among the professional staff.