OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I: Anonymous User

PCA-Symbolic Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:

1. Describe the symbolic frame

2. Apply the symbolic 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. 

Competitive salaries for store managers must be revisited. 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 retail store managers. As store managers, our

compensation did not change. Yet our workload continues to grow. 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. Our stores are severely understaffed

and we need more partners in our stores. We need more labor hours to serve our customers. 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 symbols of the organization influenced the situation.

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The Starbucks’ siren logo is the green mythological creature from the book, Moby Dick, written

by Herman Melville. “She’s the biggest symbol of our brand, really, other than our partners

(employees). She’s the face of it,” Steve Murray said. He’s a creative director in the Starbucks

Global Creative Studio (Starbucks, 2016). The siren logo has evolved over the years and has

become synonymous with the brand. Starbucks has changed the logo multiple times from a

brown-colored siren with two tails to the most recent one with just the face of the siren. This

siren delivers with a promise of a delicious handcrafted beverage every time.

     Another symbolic figure of Starbucks was our former CEO, Howard Schultz. He had built

Starbucks from its first café in Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington to thousands of locations

all over the world. Schultz transformed Starbucks into one of the most admired companies and

was well respected by others. It received recognition as one of the Fortune 500 Most Admired

Companies (Staff, F.). Schultz had always believed that the foundation of Starbucks started with

its people. He built a company that valued people first before business. But the current climate at

Starbucks with our new senior leadership has changed since Howard Schultz left in 2017. 

     The company had always put the needs of its partners. However, the most recent pay increase

for all hourly employees had become more of a problem than a solution. All full-time, salaried

employees did not get a compensation increase and the pay gap between hourly and salaried had

decreased by a huge percentage. Salaried employees like store managers have been working

harder since the pandemic happened. Employee turnover has been at its highest, employee

morale has been at its lowest, and the mental health of the employees, salaried and hourly, has

suffered. 

     The siren’s logo is no longer synonymous with a delicious handcrafted beverage but a major

stressor with the employees’ relationship with Starbucks. The people come first before business

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feels non-existent. The company’s vision of creating that warmth and sense of belonging for

partners feels far from the truth.

   

      

3)   Recommend how you would use organizational symbols for an alternative course of

action regarding your case.

The symbolism of Starbucks as one of the most respected brands in the world has to have some

amazing advantages. The siren’s logo needs to be respected again by everyone from customers to

partners. The logo needs to evolve after this pandemic as it does when the company goes through

a transformational change. 

I will use the siren’s logo to re-tell our Starbucks story to all partners. Senior leadership needs to

take a look at the logo and the journey it had gone through from obstacles to success. Today, this

logo no longer represents that success we had two years ago. That success of having happier and

empowered employees. This logo needs to symbolize a rebirth of our company from all the

turmoil this pandemic brought upon us to be the resilient and inclusive company it once was. No

need to reinvent the company. We just need to be reminded of what Howard Schultz created and

built when he first bought Starbucks in 1987. We need to be reminded of the importance of every

single partner of this company from hourly to salaried, from retail to non-retail partners. 

Every time we host a hiring fair for our stores, the logo will symbolize hope for all the future

partners of Starbucks. We will be the company that we once were.

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

this frame.

After twenty-two years of being a Starbucks partner, this was the first time I experienced a huge

division amongst all partners. This could have been because of the pandemic or the previous

election. But, we have experienced harder times in the past like in 2008 when the company

closed down 800 stores to restructure the business. No jobs were lost but the store closures

affected the image of the company and the morale of the employees. Howard Schultz came back

and believed that we could rise back from that. We did rise back and the company thrived year

after year until the year 2020. 

If given a chance, I would use the symbolic stories of our companies to be shared again with our

current partners. During my meetings, I will share those memorable moments at Starbucks with

my team. I will encourage Starbucks and the senior leadership to bring Howard Schultz back to

make an appearance. He will reassure all partners that the company has not forgotten its roots

and its love for its partners. He will put our minds and hearts at ease by making us believe again

that Starbucks still cares for all partners. 

References

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

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

Starbucks. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2021, from

https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/women-in-coffee-sirens-blend/. 

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Staff, F. (2021, June 1). Starbucks: 2021 fortune 500. Fortune. Retrieved November 15, 2021,

from https://fortune.com/company/starbucks/fortune500/.