Exploring pharmacists’ perceived job alternatives: Results from the 2014 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey

Objective To examine the association between pharmacists’ demographics, practice variables, worklife attitudes (e.g., work environment stress, control in the work environment, professional commitment, work-home conflict, and organizational commitment), and their perceived job alternatives. Design Cross-sectional descriptive study. Setting A representative nationwide sample of licensed pharmacists in the United States, 2014. Participants A total of 1574 practicing pharmacists. Main outcome measures A previously validated Likert-type scale was used to measure perceived job alternatives. Pharmacists reported their perception on how easy it would be to find a better job with the use of 17 common organizational characteristics. The higher the score, the easier they perceived it would be to find a new job. Results The perceived job alternatives scale manifested 4 constructs: environmental conditions, professional opportunities, compensation, and coworkers. Multivariate regression analysis showed that organizational commitment was the most influential worklife attitude and was negatively associated with all constructs except better compensation. The higher professional commitment and environmental stress, the easier pharmacists perceive it would be to find a new job with better environmental conditions, such as better professional treatment by management. Younger pharmacists indicated higher perceived levels of ease in finding a job with better environmental conditions and professional opportunities. Male pharmacists also reported a higher perceived level of ease in finding an alternate job with better professional opportunities. White pharmacists perceived it would be easier to find a new job with better environmental aspects and compensation. No statistical significance was observed in perceived job alternatives among pharmacists practicing in different primary work settings after adjusting for other variables. Conclusion Demographics and worklife attitudes were found to affect perceived availability of job alternatives. Organizational commitment was the most important factor inversely associated with pharmacists’ perceptions of better job alternatives. Employers may retain pharmacists by constantly maintaining pharmacists’ sense of belonging to their organizations.