OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:

1. Describe the four ethical communities

2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other course materials per APA
guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1. Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

The situation that I chose was my experience as a store manager for Starbucks and working through a pandemic. Starbucks fell
under the umbrella of essential workers at the peak of the pandemic. Our operations were at the point of cafe stores in our area all
being closed and only drive thru locations open for drive thru only. At this time partners had lots of concerns and fears around
COVID and being at risk. Starbucks decided to roll out an option for all partners, they could choose to either stay home and
continue being paid their average weekly hours worked, or they could continue to work, and eventually were given an increase
hourly for this duration. Most partners decided to stay home due to being high risk or having a high risk family member. Quickly
my staff 22 was diminished to 8. We maintained operations and kept the business open at limited capacity. There were numerous
challenges present over the course of a few months, from the constant changing protocols for health and safety, to changes in
operations and modifications the business. The pressures of maintaining composure, while balancing the health and well being of
my partners and their families, ensuring we were keeping safe and keeping up on sanitization practices, to making sure we are
providing the best possible product and service to the community who relied on Starbucks.

2. Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

The ethics of the organization greatly influenced the situation. Every decision that was made, was made with ethical intent behind
it. Starbucks is at the forefront of ethical practices, down to its coffee sourcing. Starbucks evaluated all of the conditions within
the business when rolling out decisions made to adjust to COVID. By looking at partners who fell into a high risk category, and
those that had family that fell in that category, as well as partners who were concerned for their own health, Starbucks came up
with a way to address all of it. From an ethical standpoint, Starbucks went above and beyond to take care of their employees, with
first class response and choices for all workers.

By being one of the first companies to not lay anyone off, and have industry leading benefits such as the option to stay home and
continue being paid your average hours worked. Starbucks also set the tone for other companies to follow and I think effectively
influenced other organizations ethically as well to also step up and take care of the people.

3. Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative course of action regarding
your case.
When looking at what ethical community I would apply for an alternate course of action, I would look at family caring and love.
Within that community stakeholders are treated as family and cared for. My recommendation is that my organization applies this
approach for this situation. While yes offering to pay partners to stay home is great, but for the partners continuing to work, more
adjustments should have been made to reduce stress and workload for those working in understaffed locations. I think my
organization made great moves in the full direction of this community but I also understand they did the best they could with the
info they had at the time.

In applying this Starbucks could close a few more stores that were generating minimal revenue or had limited partners who
wanted to continue working and distributed those partners to the stores where there was a high revenue flow, as well as a greater
community need. Instead of trying to soak up every dollar at every possible location, funnel that traffic through efficient, staffed,
friendly, and a better experience location. Partners all are a family, we are close with one another, and if we were coming
together at central locations would build support, raise morale, increase the productivity and provide a chance to fully help a
community.

4. Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned about ethics.

I think looking back I am not sure there is much I would do differently, I think no matter which way you slice it, you have to have a
loss somewhere. It is nearly impossible to balance all stakeholders expectations yet satisfy every party without compromise during a
pandemic. Starbucks found a way to take care of people who could not or did not want to work for health reasons, and also tried to
continue making money to satisfy company needs and shareholders. Overall Starbucks presented the best solution possible for all
of these needs, I would say they could have potentially closed a few more stores and distributed partners to fill stores that remained
open to reduce the amount of work distributed amongst a small number of people.