Rachel Pierce

OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Politcal Frame Worksheet
Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the political frame
2. Apply the political 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. During this time, I worked in a store as a
barista and shift lead.

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

Starbucks is a very progressive company. They pride themselves on setting

industry standards of taking care of their partners(employees), creating community, and
providing excellent service. While trying to adhere to all of these standards they also
have set a precedent for themselves of considerable growth every year. Eventually an
organization will hit a plateau where something has to give. Instead of discussing realistic
growth with their board and shareholders they created growth by attempting to increase
sales and cut costs by cutting labor hours given.

It is hard to admit that there might have been missteps, especially when you are
such a public figure. I believe that their desire to maintain their image of a progressive
company while also maintaining growth was a big part of the problem. If they had just
admitted that maybe the steps taken weren’t the right ones and they would work on a
better solution. There might have been a different outcome that didn’t require thousands
of signatures from both employees and customers on petition demanding change.

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

I think Starbucks truly does have great core beliefs and policies. However, when
you are trying to stay at the front it can be easy to give on certain things to maintain a
lead. The lead that they seemed to want to protect is, understandably, was their image.
They didn’t want to acknowledge that they put the bottom line over the needs of their
employees or even those of their customers.
During this time the company was going through a leadership change and it
would appear the internal politics had slightly shifted. It seems to me that it isn’t
uncommon to see people try and make their mark when there is a shift in leadership. I
think that is part of what happened during this time. The core values of the company were
put on the back burner so some people could push their values and strategies to make
more money.

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

I would have encouraged an open discussion about the values of the company
before and during the change in leadership. Reminding everyone what makes this
organization special and how it got to be an industry leader. Making its values center
stage might help to cut down on the opportunists who want to make a name themselves
on how they impacted the growth or whatever it might be.
The new CEO held similar values as the company and worked with the former
CEO to mediate and fix the problem. I think maybe it could have been beneficial to have
more overlap between the two to show solidarity in their ideals. It seemed to me that
there was an announcement that the old CEO was retiring, then there was a pause, then
the new CEO had been announced. We all know the former CEOs name and felt
connected to him on some level. Had they put a little more effort in giving us time to get
to know the new CEO that might have helped as well in mediating any internal politic
shifts.

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Reference or References