Analysis of the Ukrainian employer current requirements to the pharmaceutical personnel

The introduction of modern approaches to the management of pharmacy institutions and Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) requires the special knowledge, skills, and “client orientation” among pharmacy professionals. Aim. To determine the socio-psychological characteristics that a pharmacy professional should have. Materials and methods. To determine the requirements set by employers to pharmacists over 900 topical vacancies for October 2016 provided by pharmacy institutions in Ukraine have been analyzed. The analysis was carried out according to the data of the leading job sites, such as work.ua, rabota.ua, trud.ua, job.i.ua, hh.ua, job.ukr.net. Results and discussion. Based on the analysis of vacancies presented by pharmacy institutions, the requirements of employers to pharmacists have been determined. It has been found that employers still focus on the professionalism of a specialist. The requirements to knowledge and skills that a modern pharmacist should possess have been analyzed. The certain rules that a pharmacy specialist must adhere in his/her professional activities have been determined. The socio-psychological characteristics of pharmacy professionals have been studied. Conclusions. The requirements set by employers to pharmacists in modern conditions have been studied, and the ideal pharmacist portrait has been formed.

Ключевые слова: специалисты фармации; требования; работодатели; социально-психологические характеристики; вакансия; профессиональные обязанности The question about availability of highly skilled pharmaceutical workers becomes more acute as soon Ukraine move to the EU standards and implementation of international legal obligations and good practice GxP. Today there is a significant gap between the demands of employers and the training level of future specialists in higher education institutions (HEIs). This trend caused by the rapid development of science and technology, changes in regulatory requirements, continuous development of new drugs and new dosage forms and high competition at the pharmaceutical market is observed not only in Ukraine, but it is also true for other countries both in near and far abroad.
As Sur S. notes [1], the lag between the training level of graduates and the pharmacy practice needs is 5-7 years in EU countries, while it amounts to 30-50 years for the CIS countries, including Ukraine.
A lot of papers are devoted to the study of the professional competence of specialists, including the pharmaceutical industry. For example, Halii L. V. and Tolochko V. M. [2] specified the basic requirements for pharmacists; the availability of special education, skills and experience, certain mental abilities, appropriate health and personal characteristics [2]. Gorodetskaya V. I., Lebedynets V. A., Kovalenko S. M. [3] studied the employers' requirements to specialists concerning the quality management in the pharmaceutical sector understood as the level of education and the professional competence of specialists. Bratishko S. and Posylkina O. V. [4] analyzed the functional responsibilities and requirements to the position of experts on the social responsibility of pharmaceutical companies. Such researcher as Kotvitska A. A., Ponomarenko M. S., Nemchenko A. S. studied the specific issues.
Because of the significant gap between the demands of employers and the training level of graduates the aim of our work is to develop new educational programs based on the industry needs and wishes of employers and to study the requirements imposed by society today to pharmacy professionals.
The market development, new approaches to doing business, increased competition, the constant growth in the number of pharmacies, increase in the number of graduates and the economic crisis lead to the increased demands of employers to pharmacists.

Materials and methods
To determine the requirements imposed by employers to pharmacy professionals over 900 topical vacancies for October 2016 provided by pharmacy institutions in Ukraine were analyzed. The analysis was conducted according to the data of the leading job websites such as work.ua, rabota.ua, trud.ua, job.i.ua, hh.ua, job.ukr.net [5][6][7][8][9][10].

Results and discussion
Our studies allowed determining that employers still focus on the professionalism of a specialist. The following vacancy ads for the position of a pharmacist are typical today (Fig. 1) [9].
The main functional responsibilities of pharmacy professionals that employers require are determined based on the study of the vacancies published. They include: drug dispensing (X1); provision of good pharmaceutical care of patients when dispensing OTC drugs (X2); control of the shelf-life of drugs (X3); keeping of cash records (X4); keeping of records of out-of-stock items (X5); display of goods (X6); receipt of drugs (X7); control of storage conditions for drugs (X8); timely, professional and quality service of customers (X9); keeping of the required internal documentation and reporting (X10); preparation for selling drugs (X11); fulfillment of the plan for drug sales (X12); regular customers attracting (X13); participation in the inventory (X14); sale of prescription drugs (X15); check (control) of availability of drugs (X16): check of prescriptions (X17); provision of information on the availability of drugs to the client (X18); provision of health education work (X19); drug production in pharmacies (X20) (Fig. 2).
For a long time the education in the field was the requirement to pharmacists. The requirement to have higher education for applicants was put forward by 72 % of employers, 28 % of employers demanded professionals with the specialized secondary education.
According to the opinion of employers the professional experience plays an important role. Thus, most   (Fig. 3).
Most employers impose certain requirements to knowledge, abilities and skills, which a modern pharmacy specialist should have (Tab.).
The pharmacist must know and follow certain rules (Fig. 4).
As seen from the distribution histogram, today employers have no consensus regarding the personal characteristics of applicants, as well as there is no clear idea what a pharmacy professional should be. The main characteristics are communication skills (31.6 %); responsibility (25.6 %); and focus on results (17.2 %). But it should be taken into account that different people come to the pharmacy: businessmen and housewives, socially vulnerable pensioners and homeless people; they all need attention, understanding and compassion. They want  To work with the cash register (9.12 %) To work with regulations and specifications (6.48 %) to be heard and get advice and sympathy. This, in turn, will lead them to purchase drugs and, consequently, to profit pharmacies and increase the visits of the population.
Thus, the volume of sales of a pharmacy, its competitiveness, and the level of the consumer confidence depend on the pharmacist's ability, activity, and professionalism. Therefore, the ideal pharmacist is a specialist, who has a set of professional skills, loves and appreciates his/her profession, feels the social significance of the profession. CONCLUSIONS 1. The requirements set by employers to pharmacists in modern conditions have been studied. It has been found that the key responsibilities of pharmacy professionals are to dispense drugs; provide the appropriate pharmaceutical care of patients when dispensing OTC drugs; control the shelf-life of drugs; keep cash records; keep records of out-of-stock items and display of goods.
2. According to the opinion of employers the communication skills, responsibility and focus on results are the basic characteristics, which a modern pharmacy professional should possess.
3. The ideal pharmacist portrait has been formed: the ideal pharmacist is a specialist, who has a set of professional skills, loves and appreciates his/her profession, feels the social significance of the profession.
Conflicts of Interests: authors have no conflict of interests to declare.