Our role as the profession’s wellbeing charity 

At Pharmacist Support, we’re continuously on a mission to champion positive workplace cultures in pharmacy. From our Embracing a Workplace Wellbeing Culture course and multiple free online resources, to our annual Workforce Wellbeing Survey (ran jointly with the RPS) and speaker sessions at key sector events up and down the country, we understand our role as the profession’s wellbeing charity in showcasing how team and individual wellbeing is greatly enhanced by progressive workplace practices and environments.

Our role as an employer 

Being a wellbeing charity ourselves, it’s very important to us to lead from the front to champion positive working environments and showcase how a happy, cared-for and empowered workforce leads to better productivity. 

Over the past few years, we’ve invested heavily and taken many people-led steps to ensure each individual feels heard, valued and happy to work with us. This has included running annual anonymous staff surveys, a wellbeing survey, developing and encouraging each staff member to chat through their individual wellbeing needs with their line manager through a confidential Wellbeing Plan, offering coaching to the entire team, partaking in internal wellbeing workshops, offering flexible and hybrid working to everyone in the team and investing in a good employee benefits scheme … just to name a few! 

Since making these changes, we have seen staff wellbeing increase in our 2024 annual staff survey, with 100% of our staff saying they were very satisfied/satisfied with Pharmacist Support as a place of work and a further 100% saying they feel valued and recognised for their work. Through our journey, we have learned that by living and breathing the principles of wellbeing we can create a supportive workplace culture that benefits everyone. 

How our efforts have been recognised 

We’re very proud to have scooped two awards at the end of 2024 for our achievements in promoting positive workplace cultures.  

In November, we won the Excellence in Workforce Wellbeing award from the Charity Learning Consortium (CLC). This award is to acknowledge our Embracing a Workplace Wellbeing Culture course, described by CLC as a “groundbreaking … innovative course [which has] laid the foundation for exploring innovative ways to provide wellbeing support and training to beneficiaries.“

The Embracing a Workplace Wellbeing Culture course is for pharmacy managers, supervisors and leaders who want to learn how to better support their teams’ mental health and wellbeing, and draws on extensive research in the pharmacy profession, as well as our own practices.  

In November, we were also over the moon that our efforts to foster a positive workplace wellbeing culture within our own charity team were recognised at the Culture Pioneer Awards. Beating many other worthy businesses and organisations, we won the Wellbeing Award and were described as one of the judges as “demonstrating a holistic, personalised approach to wellbeing, with an added human touch. The initiative started by listening to employees first, and assessing their needs, followed by senior leaders role-modelling the right behaviours for a supportive culture.” 

What next? 

We understand that true workplace wellbeing is an ongoing conversation. To provide further support to our pharmacy family, in 2025 we’ll continue to develop and share resources and guidance on best workplace practices, including adding more episodes to our thriving new podcast, A Dose of Wellbeing, to complement our existing episode on ‘How to create a positive workplace culture’ (as well as an episode about how our nutrition affects mental health). 

We’ll also continue to engage with and listen to our team to understand how we can further support their personal and workplace wellbeing – starting with our end-of-year party when all staff and trustees will come together to celebrate our achievements.  

In the meantime, these two awards will be proudly added to our other recent achievements, including the Small Charity of the Year at the annual Association of Charitable Organisations Awards in 2023, and the Digital Transformation Award at the Association of Charitable Organisations Awards which we won in 2022.