Rachel Pierce

OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet
Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame 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 I am discussing is the ‘perceived’ labor shortage that took place in
Starbucks stores 2016-17. During this time there was a push to increase sales and the
mobile order app had been launched. In an effort to increase profits more there was a cut
in the amount of “labor” managers were given to staff the stores with. This means that
they could not schedule as many hours a day, so while we were still open the same
operation hours they were working with less scheduling hours. This caused strain on
baristas and upset customers. Eventually there was a meeting between a barista that
started a petition and the head of Starbucks.

2) Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

The way Starbucks is structured would classify as a matrix structure but there was also a
significant amount of a hierarchy authority type structure(Bolman & Deal, 2017). There
are the CEO, Kevin Johnson, and then various people that are in charge of different areas
that Starbucks is in. For example, there is Rossann Williams who is in charge of US and
Canada company owned stores. The chain of command goes down from there
accordingly. Eventually you reach the more local levels where you have an area manager,
regional manager, district manager, and then store managers. Within the stores there are
the store managers, sometimes an assistant manager, shift leads, and then baristas.

The size and structure of Starbucks meant that it was hard for corporate, who makes all
the decisions, to hear feedback from store level employees. They received the numbers,
statistics, and customer feedback but didn’t get to hear much from those in the stores.
This was especially hard for the store level workers because they were the ones to feel the
repercussions of all corporate’s choices – good or bad. During the time of this situation
there wasn’t much communication going up the ladder it was mostly coming down.

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3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

Since Starbucks is such a large, international corporation I think the matrix

structure makes sense. They can employ leaders in each region that knows the country or
countries best and how things should run there, all while fitting in the company standard.
With so many tiers of management in the matrix structure sometimes information going
up stops before it should. Then you end up with a bunch of regional or district managers
sitting with frustrations from the store level workers but because they had less contact
with each other the patterns didn’t show a major problem to upper level management in
corporate until a barista took public action.
While a matrix structure makes sense there needed to be an element of the “all-
channel” network involved(Bolman & Deal, 2017). If there had been more
communication between the management closer to the store level maybe it could have
been addressed before it hit boiling point. This eventually was part of the solution.

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

As a store level worker, I felt stifled, like my frustrations reached my manager

and that was it. Our district managers would acknowledge our hard work from time to
time, but we were drowning. It was hard to see the frustration and anger from customers
and coworkers almost daily and still want to come into work. Something I would have
liked to have seen was a more open flow of communication. An opportunity to talk to
people in the company from outside your own store.
This was actually something they did as part of their strategy to fix the problem.
There had been meetings before, but they implemented more frequent meetings for all
different level of workers with varying levels of management that they call “roundtable
meetings”. This gives us an opportunity to be heard, ask questions, and come together to
form solutions. It also connects various levels of management as it happens not just for
baristas but at all levels. I think this was a great solution because it helped to bridge the
gap between stores and corporate.

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Reference or References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass (Perusall Version Only)