OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource frame to your personal case situation

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

Our store continues to exceed expectations in sales and growth. We have grown

our business year after year. Our employees were thriving and the recognition for

development and success had been well received by the team. Lately, we are seeing

numerous employees leaving our company. With the pandemic, our business, specifically

our store, had tremendous success but with that success, we also saw a decline in our

employee morale. Our employees are exhausted with the amount of foot traffic in our

store. They are in constant motion to help customers and rarely find time to learn a new

skill. The stress of the pandemic has hit our store and our employees are not staying. The

company is experiencing this problem in all its stores. I have asked my team for help and

feedback. They were not happy with the workload and the quality of their work has

decreased. After meeting with my shift supervisors, they asked for more baristas and

labor hours to distribute the tasks and workload evenly. I had hiring fairs and job postings

online and in-store, yet it didn’t bring applicants in. Jobseekers were looking to be

compensated more. They didn’t want stock options, nor health care benefits, they were

asking for more money. I had brought this attention to my district manager. She advised

me to keep searching for talent and the right people will come. After this meeting with

my district manager, I went and tried again. With little success in recruiting, I asked for

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 my team to help. They recruited their friends and family to apply. I was able to find some

amazing referrals but those were not enough. In September of 2021, the company

announced that they were increasing the hourly wages to $12 an hour for baristas and $15

for the shift supervisors. Nothing was announced for store managers. Our compensation

did not change. Yet our workload continues to grow. Inventory of our beverage

components continues to be a problem. We are missing core items to make our drinks.

We are needing more labor hours to fulfill the needs of our customers. Competitive

salaries for store managers must be revisited. Stress has become synonymous with our

daily lives and Starbucks seemed to have forgotten what our company was built on, its

people. 

The situation at our stores has become unbearable at times. With product outages and

labor constraints, the partners and I are tired. An increase in compensation might not be

an answer but it’s a good incentive especially nowadays, the cost of living has gone up

especially in Texas.

2) Describe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

Starbucks builds and innovates its benefits regularly. Starbucks is raising its minimum wage

to $15 an hour starting June of 2022 for their baristas (Selyukh, 2021). The company is also

planning on pay increases in the beginning of the year 2022 for some of its tenured baristas and

shift supervisors. The Starbucks benefits program has continued to be the best compared to other

retailers. Healthcare benefits, free tuition via Starbucks College Achievement Plan (SCAP) from

Arizona State University, stock options, 401k retirement plan, stock grants, and free food and

beverage while working plus partnerships with other retailers for discounted rates. Starbucks has

not only enhanced its benefits package, it also added some very important benefits during the

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pandemic. Starbucks partnered with Care.com for partners with young children to get back up

child care. The company has partnered with Lyra Health, for partners who need or want to seek

therapy for twenty free sessions. Partnerships with Lyft, will allow partners in certain major

cities to get a free ride during the pandemic. Starbucks has also enhanced hourly pay during the

pandemic by paying partners $3 more to incentiventize being an active, working partner.

The company has done a tremendous job putting the needs of our partners. Their creation

of the diversity and inclusion department, partner networks, and career progression path are the

steps the company has taken to care for our partners as they listen to feedback and needs of the

partners. Starbucks has announced that they are enhancing all the training programs to give

partners more training time and updating their training programs. They have hired recruiting

specialists for local regions and major cities. These recruiting specialists are responsible for

opening up the talent pool in our recruiting website and they provide guidance for store

managers in navigating the recruiting process. Just recently, the company shared that they will

also update their equipment and technology to make it easier for partners to craft beverages and

ring up customers (Starbucks, 2021)

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

The benefits of working for Starbucks have made a big impact in my life and thousands

of other partners. Being able to go back to school through the SCAP program has changed

my life and opened doors for more opportunities for growth. Starbucks has been an

inspiration to other companies who have followed their footsteps in providing life-changing

benefits for their employees like Walmart and Target (Kelly, 2021) These benefits have

helped Starbucks retain their current partners while in college. Another great benefit that was

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 added recently was the local recruiting specialists. These specialists have been in position

since the beginning of summer 2021. Yet, we are still struggling with recruitment. We are not

getting enough applicants to apply. The store managers are getting burnt out due to extra

work of recruiting, hiring and training.

I have some for recommendations for Starbucks that I hope they would consider.

First, with the SCAP partners who are taking Human Resources classes, I suggest utilize

these students to help with the talent assessment, interviews, and onboarding to earn

experience. It can count towards a class credit or towards a project. These SCAP partners

will enhance and expand their knowledge in building their resume while attending college

and being a partner at Starbucks.

Another recommendation for Starbucks is how we utilize the recruiting

specialists. Their current responsibilities do not include recruiting nor interviewing. It would

be helpful and time-saving if the specialists are part of the actual recruiting process. Their

role of providing resources for the managers are useful but the managers need more than that.

The recruiting specialists can advertise job postings on third party website, filter the

applicants, and host job fairs for the applicants they have selected. These actions will be an

enormous responsibility and help for the managers and the store partners. These specialists

need to be a permanent position and their roles have to be more clearly defined.

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

After some reflection, I realized that human resources is the most important division in the

company especially my company, Starbucks. We have hundreds of thousands of partners

worldwide, and we have entrusted our leaders to make the best decisions for us. Yet, these

decisions are not easy to be made. The pay changes that were announced have divided the

company. The hourly partners are excited and deserved their pay increase. However, salaried

partners more specifically store managers and assistant managers, have not had their salary

increased outside of their annual pay increase. The senior leaders are working diligently to take

care of all partners. The hard work they have shown has been inspirational and powerful. The

culture of bringing us all together as one company, one unit, and one community has shown what

is truly possible. But, Starbucks has to keep going and to continue to find ways to make it even

easier to be a partner, and a store manager.

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 Reference or References

Kelly, J. (2021, August 5). Target and walmart are offering free college tuition to attract and
retain workers. Forbes. Retrieved November 1, 2021, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/08/05/target-and-walmart-are-offering-free-
college-tuition-to-attract-and-retain-workers/?sh=4acd49ca31d2.

Selyukh, A. (2021, October 28). Starbucks and Costco raise wages in the nationwide
competition for workers. NPR. Retrieved November 1, 2021, from
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1049980529/starbucks-and-costco-raising-wages-in-the-
nationwide-competition-for-workers.

Starbucks. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2021, from

https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2021/starbucks-makes-historic-investments-in-its-
partners/.