Pharmacists Are Moderately Satisfied With Salary, Job Satisfaction, Survey Shows (Part 3)

Part 1 of our analysis of the Pharmacy Times® salary and Job Satisfaction Survey provided an overview of results. These showed that when pharmacists were asked to rate their overall job satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 7 (with 1 being “not at all” satisfied and 7 being “extremely” satisfied), the aver-age response among the 148 respondents was 3.76, down from 4.41 in 2021.

Part 2 highlighted pharmacists’ satisfaction with their total compensation, with the average response being 4.15, down from 4.41 in 2021.

In part 3 of the series, we further explore pharmacists’ job satisfaction and the factors that contribute to their overall happiness in a position.

Pharmacy Times asked respondents to determine which 3 factors were the driving contributors to their job satisfaction: autonomy, being a key opinion leader in my specialty, challenges, colleagues, compensation, dynamic profession, facility where I practice, improving patients’ health, opportunities for advancement, patient interactions, prestige of the pharmacy profession, and pride in what I do.

The top 3 responses among 148 pharmacists were compensation (16.3%), pride in what I do (16.3%), and autonomy (12.0%).

We also asked respondents which of the following were the main contributors to their job dissatisfaction: colleagues, commute, compensation, facility where I practice, frustration with providers, interactions with health insurance companies, limited scope of practice, management, work hours, work-life balance, and workload.

Of these options, the top 3 were workload (35.3%), work-life balance (24.7%), and management (11.8%).

In addition, we asked how motivated respondents were by the potential for advancement in their organization, using the previously mentioned scale of 1 to 7, but few were motivated by the possibility of promotion. Among the 148 respondents, the average response was just 3.11, down from 3.32 last year.

When asked how likely they would be to choose a pharmacy career again if they had the opportunity to start over, the respondents were slightly more enthusiastic than last year, with an average response of 3.65 vs 3.34.