What are academic pharmacy organizations doing to reward performance and retain their star faculty?

Evidence suggests that stars in an organization, including academia, drive much of its productivity and reputation. There has been much said within academic pharmacy about recruitment, but little in regard to retaining its top faculty.

To identify perceptions among pharmacy faculty on how faculty are currently rewarded; what is done versus what should be done at their institution to recruit and retain star faculty; what is versus what should be done in developing faculty, and compare these perceptions across certain personal and work characteristics.

A questionnaire survey designed in Qualtrics was distributed via email to a census sample of 3378 members comprising 2018 AACP list-servs. Faculty activities and organization actions were derived from literatures and pilot testing. Frequency distributions and Kruskal-Wallis tests were conducted to describe the data.

Responses from 463 faculty indicated scholarly publishing as paramount for receipt of organizational rewards. They indicated that their organizations very infrequently employed action to retain star faculty. They indicated that more should be done to retain stars, and this was largely agreed upon by those in supervisory positions, even though there were a few differences between supervisors and non-supervisors over what is already being done. While there were differences in perception primarily by respondent institution type, there were many more similarities than differences of opinion about actions taken and that should be taken to retain star faculty.

Pharmacy faculty affirmed the salience of scholarly productivity in the allocation of organizational rewards and indicated that certain activities like high-quality clinical practice and good citizenship behaviors were less likely to result in recognition. The results offer considerations for faculty retention strategies and the need for administrators to communicate actions taken to retain star faculty.