What is important to them? Occupational values of nationally certified pharmacy technicians in role expansion

Pharmacy technicians are currently presented with more opportunities to expand their scope of practice. Many states have expanded technician scope of practice to ease the work burdens currently being placed on pharmacists, enhancing the role of technicians. This has led to more research into the benefits increasing the utilization of technicians in pharmacy practice. However, technician uptake of these expanded roles varies in many states permitting expanded scope of practice.

The objective of this study was to build a baseline understanding of which occupational values are important to pharmacy technicians.

This study employed a cross-sectional, descriptive design using an online survey distributed to a convenience sample of nationally certified pharmacy technicians. Demographics and the perceived importance of 9 occupational values, each of which were classified as intrinsic or extrinsic in nature, were collected on a 5-point linear numeric scale. Mean scores were calculated for each of the 9 values, as well as for intrinsic and extrinsic values overall.

Our study found that all 9 measured values were above average importance to technicians. Pharmacy technicians, regardless of setting, were seen to place a higher importance on extrinsic values than intrinsic values. In particular, the organizational values of the salary of the job, the job security and hours, and the ability to help others were the most important to technician. In addition, the mean scores of extrinsic and intrinsic values were with 0.1 of each other on a 5-point linear numeric scale.

The motivations of pharmacy technicians appear to generally be both intrinsic and extrinsic in nature. Therefore, pharmacists must consider both forms in attempting to motivate their technicians.