For many years, Sue Symonds was a part-time community pharmacist, adjusting her working hours to fit in with bringing up a family. As her children grew up and left home, she increased her hours of working and changed her work pattern and employers, until she was working three days a week as an assistant pharmacist, with occasional extra work as a locum. Here she outlines research into part-time work in community pharmacy which led to the award of her PhD degree
Part-time community pharmacists are a far from homogeneous work group. Despite a wide variety of working patterns, age groups, and family circumstances, there is a consensus of feeling among part-time pharmacists about the difficulties they encounter, which are not understood either by employers or by full-time colleagues.
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Feeling that a study of part-time work, focusing on community pharmacy, might add to existing knowledge and stimulate interest in further research, I applied for, and was granted, a training award and, subsequently, a studentship from the Pharmacy Practice Research Enterprise Scheme. A masters degree, followed by three year's postgraduate research in a school of sociology, enabled me to make a career change, while building on my experience as a part-time community pharmacist.
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Part-time work can suit pharmacists drawing to the ends of their careers . . . |
Part-time work is not merely full-time work on a smaller scale. Definitions can be based on:
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. . . or those looking for a flexible start |
The notion of conflict between the two roles of women is strong and many researchers see part-time work as a resolution of this conflict. The importance of family in defining women's participation in the labour market gives rise to an assumption about part-time women workers being less committed to their work.3 They are presumed to be less likely to pursue a promotional career, even within professions where the work of men and women is seen as equal in value. Tam4 poses the question of whether part-time employment is a bridge or a trap, based on data from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative (1986-97).
Researching part-time work is often seen as tackling a feminist question, but part-time work in community pharmacy requires more complex interpretations. Even so, research into part-time pharmacists can be interpreted as having a feminist agenda because such work is often seen as a good job for a woman while being controlled by men.
My own experiences as a part-time community pharmacist prompted the original research interest and contributed to the selection of the research question. I was made aware of the issue of the researcher/subject relationship, and how that might be affected by my membership of the group being researched. I needed to ensure that the subjects' own views and concerns, and not mine, directed the course of my research interviews with part-time workers. Because I was a pharmacist myself, certain references to aspects of work did not always have to be detailed, but I had to take care not to cut short or amend responses where they described something about which I already knew.
In preliminary research,5 I explored the patterns, perceptions and priorities of part-time community pharmacists, and found that part-timers mostly chose work patterns to suit their own needs and priorities, but that they perceived a number of disadvantages in part-time working. I began by posing the question "Part-time work in community pharmacy: is it a career or a compromise?"
As I reviewed the literature and then commenced the field work, I realised that the limitations of this question did not allow for other concepts of part-time work which emerged from the data.
My first task was to get an overview of what was already known about part-time pharmacy. The workforce surveys carried out by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society from 1963 to 1994 provided basic demographic information on the workforce as it related to registered pharmacists, with quantitative changes over time being the important factor. Part-time work was covered only insofar as it revealed an overall picture of the extent of working hours and how this related to gender and age groups of pharmacists. The most recent survey, for 1994, estimated that almost 30 per cent of community pharmacists were working part-time.6 This meant that they constituted a substantial group whose behaviour, beliefs and attitudes had been subject to very little qualitative research. Most previous surveys of part-time work in pharmacy had been done as part of wider research into the work patterns of women pharmacists. However, it has been a long accepted tradition within the profession for both men and women pharmacists to work part-time in preparation for retirement. A more recent, but growing, trend is for part-time work to be done in addition to another occupation, usually in another area of pharmacy.
My field work was undertaken from July, 1995, until July, 1996. First was a postal survey using a self-completion questionnaire. This was followed by individual semi-structured interviews. I decided to use the Department for Education and Employment's definition of part-time work (fewer than 30 hours a week), although the Society considers fewer than 35 hours per week to be part-time working. Anecdotal evidence suggested that pharmacists working more than 30 hours (four days a week) were not likely to regard themselves as part-time.
I conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with 26 women and seven men. As far as was possible, I covered the range of age groups and family circumstances in my selection of interviewees.
Using a prepared interview topic guide as an aide-mémoire, I asked respondents for information on:
The self-completion questionnaire was sent to all registered pharmacists belonging to two Midlands branches of the Society - a target sample of 975, of whom 53.2 per cent were male and 46.8 per cent female. These percentages corresponded to the domestic figures for male and female membership of the Pharmaceutical Register at that time. A response rate of 74.6 per cent was achieved, with slightly more replies from female pharmacists (51.3 per cent of the total).
The survey revealed that 230 respondents (31.6 per cent) were working part-time, or had done so in the past year. The 200 who worked part-time in community pharmacy (140 women and 60 men) answered further questions concerning:
The feature which emerged most strongly was the variability of work patterns. The categories which had been devised for the questionnaire could not adequately cover the full range; the complexity of many working lives only emerged during interviews. Existing work patterns had been in place for from six months up to 12 years, but more than half had less than four years' duration. The average hours worked varied from one day per month up to 29 hours per week, but 22 of the 33 part-timers worked fewer than 16 hours per week on average. Even with a definition of part-time as being fewer than 30 hours per week, two interviewees, who worked 29 hours per week and 25-30 hours per week, stated that they did not feel part-time.
In contrast to full-time work, most part-time work was arranged by personal contact or chance encounter. Only two part-timers had found their present positions through advertisements. No-one had found their jobs through agencies.
Part-time community pharmacists appeared to be in a stronger bargaining position than full-timers when arranging their hours and conditions of working. The process was less formal, more flexible and more open to negotiation. Self-employed part-time pharmacists had the greatest flexibility because they perceived the labour market in pharmacy to be very favourable. Consequently, I was surprised that only a few of the women pharmacists stated that their original career decisions were influenced by the flexible working opportunities in pharmacy. These advantages became more apparent as time passed, and especially following the birth of children when a change from full-time to part-time work might be considered. Later alterations were linked to changes in domestic, financial and other circumstances, with a general trend for more hours to be worked as children got older. It seems that part-time work in community pharmacy is rarely, if ever, a first time career choice and that it almost always follows, or is dependent upon, other life experiences. None of the part-time pharmacists were single parents, and all but two of the women had partners bringing an additional income into the household.
The definitions of part-time work I had identified from the literature appeared to have only limited relevance for the part-time pharmacists I interviewed. Their perceptions of being part-time was more concerned with a work culture, and this, in turn, was influenced by the professional and organisational processes that governed their duties and responsibilities. When asked what they did at work, interviewees gave non-specific responses, such as "I just keep things ticking over" or "I just do whatever is necessary". Feeling that the issue of what might be deemed suitable (routine) work for a part-time pharmacist was central to the understanding of the role, I sought clarification by asking for details of routine tasks which were perceived to be part of the job, and of any extra, or non-routine, work.
The lists of routine tasks were remarkably consistent, headed by receiving and checking of prescriptions, supervision of dispensing and counter sales, counselling and advice-giving, and problem-solving. Dispensing was well down on most lists, except in the case of some of the older part-timers. There appeared to be little involvement in long term activities of the pharmacy, such as business planning or staff training: part-timers were often employed in order to give full-time pharmacists time to perform those duties.
There were wider ranging views about what non-routine, or unsuitable, work might be. Many interviewees regarded such tasks as cleaning, dusting and tidying up, as unsuitable work for pharmacists. Even standard dispensary tasks, such as ordering and unpacking stock, simple labelling and dispensing, were considered by some to be unsuitable work. Other non-routine tasks included administrative duties and paperwork, such as prescription endorsing.
Sometimes it was difficult to differentiate the feelings part-timers had of being pharmacists, from any specific part-time role but in discussing their work they used certain words and phrases which helped construct a profile of a part-time work culture.
"Flexibility" was the word most frequently used, appearing in several different contexts, for example: adapting to different types and size of pharmacy, to different roles at work (manager, second pharmacist) and to different patterns of work (half day, full day, part weeks); adjusting working practices to conform to the systems operating in different pharmacies; and exercising diplomacy, tact and tolerance in relationships with other staff members.
One assumption made about part-time workers is that they are less committed than full-timers. The understanding of commitment led to a range of interpretations and was one of the few subjects to reveal gender differences. Men were more likely to talk about a "lifetime commitment", whereas women were more likely to interpret commitment as "being there", "doing a good job" and "helping people". An older, semi-retired male pharmacist made a shrewd observation. He said: "I have never heard a woman pharmacist say ‘that'll do'. They always say ‘No, we'll put it right.' So I think they're equally or, if anything, more, committed at the time of doing the work, but perhaps not committed to saying ‘I'm going to make a career that goes on to retirement age'."
All the part-timers shared a strong professional commitment to fulfil their agreed work assignments. They spoke of "not leaving them in the lurch", or "I'd be there come hell or high water" - no doubt influenced by awareness of the legal requirement for a pharmacist to be present in a pharmacy. "The manager was desperate" was also a persuasive incentive. However, even part-timers who were not working as the sole pharmacist described their sense of obligation to find a replacement pharmacist, if they were not able to be present themselves.
"Freedom to choose" was quoted as a valued advantage of part-time work. Self-employed part-timers were more likely to have this freedom, and they spoke about the control over their lives that it gave them. Many of them actively preferred part-time work and claimed that they would not want to work full-time, even if their circumstances changed. Although there were some comments about the limited nature of part-time work, it is these limits which make the part-time option so attractive to some, who perceive it as more vocational and less promotion driven.
The interviews enabled me to appreciate more fully the diversity of part-time pharmacists' work patterns, and the complexity of the strategies they employed both within and without the work environment. I devised the terms "workcoping" and "homecoping" to describe these strategies. It was apparent that home, school and family relationships were just as important as the working relationships with employers, colleagues and customers. The strategies cover normal daily routines, as well as contingency plans which come into operation whenever the unexpected occurs. With so many factors involved, the unexpected frequently does happen; children get ill, childminders are unavailable, cars break down, crises occur at work.
The perception of a career in pharmacy as a progression out of practical pharmacy and into management is still an option that most people recognise. In this context, the negative effect of part-time work on long-term career prospects was observed by several part-timers. They believed that even returning to full-time work could never overcome the damaging effect that a period of part-time work would have on careers. The cumulative disadvantages of part-time work and their depressing effect on employment prospects could be identified as the trap described by Tam.
On the other hand, although those who had left full-time jobs to work part-time always saw it as a major change of direction, feelings varied about whether they could take up their previous jobs again. It depended very much on the extent and nature of the part-time work they were doing. Some interviewees did not believe that part-time work had any disadvantageous effect at all on career prospects. Their work was a means of keeping in touch, until they could return to full-time careers. This is Tam's bridge.
There was frequent use of phrases such as "getting a balance", "doing a balancing act" and "getting the priorities right" in descriptions of work and family lives. Part-timers had to weigh up responsibilities and commitments and assess their priorities. Many of the women spoke about being fair to their husbands or partners, to their children, to those who provided their child care and also to their employers. Sometimes actions taken in the name of fairness hinted at personal sacrifice. Although most women part-timers with children expected their partners to share at least some of the domestic duties, they all felt that they still carried the prime responsibility in the home. In addition, some part-timers had commitments extending beyond the working and domestic environments, including other jobs, sporting or leisure interests, and community activities. The pattern of daily life had become an extended series of checks and balances. The degree of satisfaction experienced by part-time pharmacists was linked to the success or otherwise that they felt in achieving these balances.
Although part-time work in community pharmacy can sometimes be seen by workers as a bridge or as a trap, a balance is an equally important interpretation. The statements made by two women pharmacists when asked why they were working part-time, provide a fitting epilogue.
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Sociological research can help us to understand career options |
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study was funded by the Department of Health under the Pharmacy Practice Research Enterprise Scheme and I acknowledge its generous support in both practical and financial terms. I would like to thank all the pharmacists who participated in the research and in particular the part-time community pharmacists who were interviewed. I am indebted to Professor Julia Evetts and Dr Pam Watson of the University of Nottingham, who supervised my thesis, for their guidance and encouragement. I also want to thank colleagues in the School of Sociology and Social Policy and members of the staff of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for their practical help. My fellow PhD and enterprise scheme students lent much appreciated moral support at critical moments. Finally, I would like to thank my family whose continued encouragement meant so much to me when I felt overwhelmed by the task.