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 chose is staffing during the COVID 19 pandemic. There are 12 stores in
my District and each Manager is consistently looking for coverage because a partner has
either tested positive for COVID, had to isolate because they were in close contact with
someone who has tested positive, or has symptoms that are consistent with COVID. In
any of the above scenarios an individual will have to isolate for at least 10 days as well as
their symptoms have improved before they can return to work. My role in this
organization is Retail store manager that leads a team of 18 people. I am responsible for
developing goals to achieve our targets, training and developing team members, Safety of
and team members and customers through quality control, and business analysis.

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

Starbucks structure is a combination of both vertical and lateral as well as a tight and
loose structure. Vertical because there are specific guidelines for beverage preparation,
routines for every task, and roles with specific responsibilities. The structure is also
lateral because executive leadership has weekly virtual meetings that all partner can
attend, ask questions, and hear the up to date changes regarding COVID policys,
inventory shortages, staffing, and pay. These meetings are called Workplace live events
and “milk crate” conversations. The weekly meetings were created to not only answer
employees questions but to also make them a part of the decision making. The
transparency of the leadership team lends itself to employees feeling secure in their roles.
The stakeholders in this organization includes employees, but also investors there are
many different people that they are accountable to regarding safety, profits, and the
ongoing operation of this company.

On page 50 of our text, James D. Thompson discusses “Organizations act, but What
determines how and when they will act?” (pg. 1). Thompson answers that “organizations

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 do some of the basic things they do because they must—or else! Because they are
expected to produce results, their actions are expected to be reasonable, or rational” (p.
1).

With that being stated, keeping our stores open with the ability to serve customers has
been difficult during the pandemic and continues to be a struggle because of the policy of
isolating if positive for COVID, and isolating if you have symptoms which has led to
short staffed stores. During the surges of illness there have been some employees that
felt that the organization didn’t care and if they did care they would shut down all of the
stores until the surge is over. For a business this is not feasible, there are investors and it
is critical that Starbucks continues to meet their goals and be profitable, even during the
pandemic.

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

Starbucks centralized structure works, however an alternative course of action could be a

combination of both centralized and decentralized structure. I would keep the overall
decision making around COVID policys with executive leadership because they are
leaders that specialize in health, science, quality assurance, public safety etc. (specifically
speaking of the Quality Assurance leader), but give the freedom of modifying hours,
closure of stores, and scheduling to the Managers that are in the frontlines because these
are employees are closest to the daily situations that occur. The managers know their
teams, customers, and have their finger on the pulse of their store. In the beginning of the
pandemic managers didn’t have much freedom with this, however recently we have been
empowered to make decisions after discussing with our District Managers.

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

It seems as if at the beginning of this pandemic there were so many uncertaintys about these
questions, how does it spread, what caused it, are you safe if you have a mask, sanitize
everything every 30 minutes, wash your hands everytime you touch money or a credit card,
Social distance 6 feet or more, and many more guidelines. We were all uncertain, so the best
course of action is to be hypervigilant. As time has gone by and science has found more
information and the guidance has evolved the one thing (within my control) that I would change
is the way I schedule my team and that would be block scheduling. About mid point of the
pandemic the managers were advised to create time blocks that only certain employees would

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work, they would always work with the same team. There would be block A- the morning team,
Block B- the midday team, and Block C- the afternoon/evening team. The reason for this is if
someone became ill on a certain block we could isolate that block and still remain open for
modified hours. At some point we were advised to stop block scheduling. What I would do
differently is consistently block schedule all the way to present day. It would have prevented
stores from closing on the most recent surge, and keep the maximum employees safe from
catching COVID.

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 Reference or References
(Choose appropriate Title if Applicable and Delete the Rest)