OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

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

The situation I’m going to be discussing is the issue of Starbucks Coffee

Company and the unionization that has taken place in Buffalo, New York. I am a current
employee (partner) of 6 years. I have not been directly affected by unionizing; however
being a part of the organization has allowed me to have insider knowledge regarding the
response of the company to these events.

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

To be completely honest, I’m not sure how the Human Resources department
influenced this situation. Because Starbucks is such a large company, I’m unsure of who
qualifies as being a part of this section of the company. There are many things as
discussed in Chapter 7 of this week's reading that go into a successful and productive
human resources department. These include: Empowering Employees, Investing In
Employees, Protecting Jobs, and collecting Survey Feedback.

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

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

A lot of these things could’ve been handled differently through the HR

department at Starbucks to avoid this happening. We do have something in place called
Partner Perspectives, where employees can submit feedback on how things are going in
stores. However, as far as we know the information is taken and never even looked at.
There is never any communication or changes made, despite LARGE amounts of partners
coming together to say the same thing, nationwide. As I’ve mentioned previously, a lack
of care for the lower level of employees is what drove these partners to push for a union.
They didn’t feel empowered, invested in or cared for.

Our human resources team put out many letters during the unfolding of the events
of the unionization. These letters were shared openly to everyone in the company. This
was a smart move on their part because there are HUNDREDS of barista groups on
Facebook and other platforms where word gets around. If the company had not made this
accessible to all, it would have gotten around anyways and in a much less controlled way.

1
These letters were the pretty typical “HR Announcement” type of letter. They contained
statements reassuring partners that we were all in this together, and the company was
there to support everyone. While they did urge partners to vote against the union, they
didn’t provide any support in regards to what changes they would make to support
partners beyond that. There was no reassurance of “we promise to make these changes in
order to make your experience as a partner better.”

This was disheartening for partners across the country, I can’t imagine how
unsupported the partners in Buffalo felt specifically. Changes needed to be addressed and
planned out so that partners truly felt the support of the company. Instead, these
halfhearted letters worsened the feelings of partners in not feeling supported.

2
 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)