Ermak, CJSC (pharmacy chain "Melody of Health") (Websoft HCM (formerly WebTutor))

2024: Automation of the employee adaptation program in a large pharmacy chain

About the Company

"Melody of Health" is one of the top 5 pharmacy chains in Russia, almost 20 years on the market. The network has more than 1200 pharmacies, the number of personnel is more than 4,000 employees. The training team employs 17 people - coaches, content developers, technical specialists. About 1,500 trainings are conducted monthly and more than 10,000 remote course appointments occur.

What they faced

The company is constantly developing, the turnover in the pharmaceutical sector is traditionally high, so we cannot do without adaptation, training at the start is very important, and programs for beginners have existed for a long time:

• the maximum possible number of trainings has already been transferred to distance courses, collected them into a single program
• approved the procedure and terms of appointment
• monitored the completion of courses

But adaptation is not only educational material, it is also work with a leader, with a mentor, it is the study of additional materials. We were faced with the fact that all this was beyond our attention. We did not understand how the work with the mentor was going and whether it was going at all, the leaders were not included in the adaptation process, we did not know whether the approved program was being implemented. The lack of a full-fledged automated program and clearly defined areas of responsibility led to unpredictable results, and sometimes curious cases that had to be dealt with. The flow on trial exceeded 15%.

In addition, quite recently we received a voluminous task from business. More than 80 new pharmacies appeared at once in the company, and this meant that more than 50 managers needed to be trained and brought to regulatory indicators in a very limited time frame.

Tasks:

• Create a high-quality step-by-step adaptation program that includes not only training materials, but also all the necessary steps and actions
• Automate the entire program
• Include a beginner, mentor, supervisor and curator in a single circuit
• Set up reporting

Implementation stages:

• Reworked existing materials: instead of blocks on topics with general, rather vague, non-concretized information, they made clear instructions and prescribed all the necessary actions for beginners and mentors.
• You have configured automatic interaction prompts.
• They involved managers - they see everything, they regularly receive reporting.
• Collected in one place all materials, courses, instructions
• Automated the task assignment process. The newcomer has his own cycle, the mentor has his own, progress is visible, there is an opportunity to change the sequence, but there is no chance of missing any block.
• We took a boxed solution as a basis, and we are finalizing it for our specifics.

What the adaptation process looks like:

• A novice is determined. We have a peculiarity in identifying employees who need adaptation - employees can combine positions, and the priority position for which they need adaptation can be in the position of combination. We are now working with Advanced Technical Support Websoft on ways to identify a newcomer, track all employee movements, and automatically assign an adaptation program.
• Notifications: a beginner about the appointment of an adaptation and a supervisor about the need to appoint a mentor.
• The manager appoints a mentor
• Notifications: to a beginner about the appointment of a mentor, to a mentor - about the ward and the timing of its adaptation
• Mentor and newcomer work on the adaptation program.
• Notifications (to each of their own) about the need to complete the task, about the approaching deadline for the task, about the expired task.

How novice works with the adaptation program

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Фото: Health Melody

We took the standard adaptation page for the newcomer and changed the part related to the reflection of information on closed and expired tasks.

As soon as the adaptation is assigned, the beginner on his page sees all the information - a list of tasks, a general plan of activity, which needs to be studied. The entire program is now transparent.

We have 4 ways to get acquainted with the material:

• self-study
• taking distance lessons
• passing tests
• separate task - analysis of material with a mentor

How the mentor works with the adaptation program

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Фото: Health Melody

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Фото: Health Melody

• The mentor has a list of his charges
• Progress is highlighted for each employee
• In any card with adaptation, the mentor can "fail"
• The system itself (based on the set deadlines when setting up adaptation) determines whether the process requires special attention from the mentor - this is all boxed standard functionality.

When we did not have an automated adaptation, we came across the fact that each mentor considered a particular issue with a beginner according to some kind of plan. It was very inconvenient, we wanted to standardize this process and decided to prescribe a plan for the issues under discussion. Here is an example - a small piece of what we have prescribed for one of the tasks.

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Фото: Health Melody

After the mentor has considered all the questions, he sets a date for the task, thereby recording that the task is completed. The need for such a mark required accustoming employees to the fact that this should be done.

Control of adaptation

We created our own "adaptation screen." This is a consolidated table of different reports that we are still collecting manually, automation in terms of development. This table contains:

• list of employees accepted in a certain period
• mentor information
• customization progress information (from custom report)
• test results

Results

• Thanks to the use of a boxed solution, the company has implemented a full-fledged, high-quality detailed adaptation program in a short, strictly limited time, which contains all the necessary materials, stages and actions. The program is clear and transparent to beginners, executives and mentors.
• Adaptation is automated. The process of identifying the employees to whom the adaptation is to be assigned is brought to the next stage of development.
• All roles and areas of responsibility are defined. The actions of the newcomer, mentor and leader have been agreed.
• A customizable customization progress report has been developed. In terms of further development, it is necessary to automate the consolidated report.

Conclusions and recommendations

Any automated program, no matter how thoughtful, will not in itself introduce an employee into the position - it will not do this for a mentor and for a leader. But it makes it possible to do everything qualitatively and consistently. Using an automated program is a change, and like any change, it requires persistent management. In our country, despite all the instructions, despite all the conversations, the mentors simply did not set statuses for a long time. We explained: "The system does not know that you have already discussed this issue. We have to come in. We need to make a mark. " We'll have to work hard to make the magic work.

As a parting word, I would like to add: It is important not to rush and analyze in more detail and prescribe all possible situations and processes before taking up development, prepare tables in advance to test the fact of assigning adaptations. Remember that automating adaptation is not a magic pill or a guarantee of success. But believe that everything will work out!