By Hannah Kerfoot
After being brought in to the Pharmora team during an all-hands-on-deck operation approaching a major project deadline, we were pleased to be introduced to working here at a calmer pace, focused on training and learning. We were told and reassured that we would never be working on something we were unsure of without training or support.
The first few weeks here were full of useful introductory training and informative presentations about life at this company. Anything we were unsure of, we felt comfortable asking about because on the very first day we, as new hires, were introduced to the people who would be our ‘Buddy’.
The Buddy System at Pharmora is a very helpful tool that ensures that less experienced team members are always assigned to someone with more experience, someone that they can ask questions to and gain work from. During the first week, the Buddy System was used more for helping us understand the layout of the office – where the kitchen and bathrooms were and how to get set up on the IT system. As we progressed through the weeks, with more experience and understanding being accumulated, we were able to use the Buddy System in a different way; helping our buddies out with their work and adding value to the Pharmora Assured Model.
This was easy to do since the team members at Pharmora are all friendly, willing to collaborate, and eager to help new hires when they request it.
After taking our time to learn and understand the process of working in the office, once we were sure we had the skills to work on the patient safety documents we had been trained and told to focus on, we were able to integrate into the team of more experienced staff members and quickly get started on doing some real work.
One of the nice things about working at Pharmora is that everything is a real team effort; work is evaluated and prioritised, with team members able to ‘jump’ on and off various projects when needed. There is always one project or another which would need more team members to help out on, and we are encouraged to be pro-active and ask if we feel we could be of some help.
Whether through engaging projects, enlightening training sessions, or collaborative problem-solving, we’ve continually been pushed to surpass our expectations, and I feel we will continue to do so.
