1)​ B

​ riefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on a multitude of businesses

worldwide, including Starbucks Coffee Company. The company headquarters took extensive
measures to ensure the safety of their partners and customers during this trying time. These
actions included, but were not limited to, offering a leave of absence or severance pay,
implementing mandated facial coverings and shields, as well as hand-washing reminders and
intense cleanliness standards. Namely, a major measure taken by Starbucks Coffee Company
was to offer a paid leave for partners who were at high risk or who felt especially unsafe working
during this time. Many partners took advantage of this leave, especially those who were
employed in cafe stores, which were shut down at the time. The company further offered
incentive for partners to stay working by increasing the in-store working partner’s pay by
$3/hour, temporarily. Starbucks further continued to offer all partners, including those on this
leave, complimentary beverages and food items on their days off or during the leave, to support
those facing other economic turmoil, or those who relied on Starbucks food during their shift as a
part of their daily meals. The text touches on the current difficulty faced by management or
corporate headquarters stating: “the demands on manager’s wisdom, imagination and agility
have never been greater, and the impact of organizations on people’s well-being and happiness
has never been more consequential” (Bolman & Deal, 2017), relating incredibly to the pressures
put on all businesses and corporations, including Starbucks during the time of the COVID-19
pandemic. Starbucks Coffee Company’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic thus proves to be
quite an intricate scenario capable of being analyzed over the five different perspectives.

I am currently a shift supervisor at a Drive Thru location. After visiting Starbuck

locations as a customer most of my life, I began my journey as a Starbucks partner in 2018. I was
hired on as a barista at a cafe location in California, where I quickly moved up to a supervisor
position. I then moved to Washington state, where I continued in my position as supervisor at an
indoor-mall location and have recently transferred to a drive thru location. The shift supervisor
role is essentially responsible for the day-to-day operations of the store. Shift supervisors handle
cash, deploy the floor, pull food, and ensure that baristas and customers have a legendary
experience and feel supported. We are the eyes and ears of the store when the manager is not
present and if anything goes wrong, we are responsible for handling it accordingly. Therefore,
the ever-changing nature of rules and regulations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic had a
significant impact on my role and the duties I performed.

2)​ D
​ escribe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

The human resources of Starbucks greatly influenced how it handled its response to
COVID-19 through ensuring partners were informed, safe, and felt supported. Starbucks Coffee
Company did this by acknowledging that its partners have human needs, as touched upon by
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The first two needs in this pyramid are physiological and safety,
which includes physical well-being (Bolman & Deal, 2017). During COVID-19, this basic
human need was not met for many and many others feared for theirs. Starbucks, thus
implemented appropriate measures to ensure that partners felt safe coming to work. After
ensuring partners were following all state and local ordinances, including facial coverings,
Starbucks mandated reminders for partners to wash their hands every 30 minutes to ensure
cleanliness standards. These reminders took the form of a timer in cafes and a voice through the
headset in drive thrus. Starbucks also mandated that partners take and record their temperature
upon entering the store. Additionally, Starbucks closed all lobby locations as partners began
feeling unsafe even with the grab-and-go system, leaving only the drive-thrus open. This last
decision, though hurtful from a business standpoint, truly showed how Starbucks leads through
the lens of humanity and that they understood and listened to the concerns of their partners.

Starbucks’ human resources additionally influenced the situation of the COVID-19

response by protecting jobs and rewarding employees (Bolman & Deal, 2017). Regarding
protecting jobs, Starbucks offered many options for partners who felt unsafe working during this
time or who were considered high risk and should not have been working. First, they offered
partners around three months off, all while being paid for the typical amount of hours they
usually accumulated. After this, high risk partners were eligible for another month off. They then
offered all partners a leave of absence, in which they would be on the LOA until September at
the maximum, but could be called back at any moment should business pick back up. While this
LOA was in progress, stores took on a sort of hiring freeze in order to ensure that all partners on
this LOA had a job to come back to, thus protecting their partner’s jobs. Starbucks further
rewarded employees who chose to stay and work through the shutdown caused by COVID-19 by
offering $3 extra an hour for all partners who continued working, thus rewarding these
employees who put themselves at risk in order to support the company.

3)​ ​Recommend how you would use the human resources for an alternative course
of action regarding your case.

I would use the human resources frame for an alternative course of action regarding this
case by focusing more on the other needs present in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. While
Starbucks did an excellent job of ensuring that their partner’s two basic needs were being met
during this trying time, I do feel as though the other needs on the pyramid, such as
social/belonging and esteem were neglected (Bolman & Deal, 2017). During COVID-19, many
people, partners included, faced loneliness in self-isolating and physical distancing, therefore
causing their social/belonging need to suffer. Additionally, in offering paid time off, but making
it optional, the company created a sort of rift between their partners. Those who stayed
sometimes felt anger or resentment towards those who had chosen the time off. Therefore, a
better alternative may have been to shut down all locations for a time, or having store managers
meet with partners to discuss all of their options and maintain cohesion given the variance in
decisions.

Additionally, regarding the esteem need, many partners who stayed working felt a
decrease in esteem as their stores became significantly busier due to most other locations being
shut down. Since most partners were on leave, many stores struggled to find people to support
their new business needs. This thus impacted partners' mental well-being as well as their esteem
as they rarely left work feeling confident that their shift went well. An alternative course of
action could thus have been to shut down locations that perhaps did not need to be shut down,
and have two store’s worth of partners working at one location, so as to support business still but
ensure that adequate labor is being provided. There also could have been a set criteria for the
minimum number of partners needed to have a store remain open. This decision was at the
discretion of the district managers, some of whom were highly against shutting down stores
completely. Thus, there were many stores that were open for less than eight hours a day and had
only three partners working every single day in order to stay open, which took its toll on the
emotional and psychological needs of these partners.

4)​ ​Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

Given what I have learned about this frame, I would not have done much differently. I
took the paid time off and continue to stand by my decision. With this new knowledge regarding
this frame, I can now understand why I chose to do this. Even before COVID-19, I had been
feeling very burnt-out and lacking in passion for my work. I considered leaving the company and
often dreaded going to work, but had little idea as to why. I fell in love with Starbucks when I
was 18 and have had no trouble staying in love in the past. Yet, something had changed and
impacted me greatly. The paid time off offered me a break to figure out what had changed and
what I needed to do in order to feel good again. This thus reflected on my needs and
psychological well-being, as is pertinent in the human resources frame. During this leave, I took
a lot of time to myself to find out who I was outside of Starbucks, in case I did really need to
leave. I discovered what made me feel good and what made me feel bad, I discovered hobbies
that I enjoyed outside of work, and I paid close attention to myself. This helped me form an
identity outside of work, and when I came back, I was brought to a new store that helped me
rediscover the love I originally held for my company.
However, looking at this frame, I do think I might have taken on a less angry mindset
going into the time off. Given what I have learned about this frame, I feel as though I now
understand the immense difficulty Starbucks faced in making decisions regarding partner care.
At the time, I was just as uncertain as the company was, and it led me to feel anger and
resentment that they could not give me the more certain and solid answers that I desired. After
reviewing this frame, I now understand more of the reasoning behind Starbucks’ decisions and
the struggle they must have faced in providing solid answers in a constantly changing
environment and uncertain time.

Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). ​Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(6th ed.).​ San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass​.