OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

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

While being a Store Manager we were impacted during COVID. I had to navigate a lot of
challenges and unknown variables. The main challenges I had to navigate was rewriting
schedules, low staffing, and inventory issues. During this time it was essencial I worked with my
team and lean into my strengths. I often had to navigate situations where I was asked questions
that I did not have the answer to. I had to develop my interpersonal skill and ask for help or ask
for answers from my peers and my boss.

During the challenges of rewriting schedules I had to ensure that I was constantly
communicating with my team to let them know any updates we had to the schedule or if we had
to modify any hours to adjust for people needing to isolating. We also faced the challenge of
being short staffed and being on a hiring freeze. This required me having to get creative on how I
networked and utilized my interpersonal skills. We managed to get through the short staffed and
I ensured we were never in that position again. When navigating inventory issues, I frequently
had to work with other stores to see what extra product they had or what product we could give
them. This required me to ask for help, and to offer help. It seemed like every day there was a
new challenged that arose, but every day we figured it out and kept moving forward.

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

The ethics of Starbucks influence every situation within Starbucks. I was to specifically talk
about the ethics of Starbucks influced their decisions around COVID. Ethically Starbucks always
tries to make the right decisions. They always ensure that they take the baristas concerns and
ideas into consideration. Starbucks advertises that they are a very ethical company and that they
will always make the honest decision. But Starbucks always back up their promises with their
actions.

During COVID there were many times where there were opportunies to make either ethical
or non-ethical decisions. But Starbucks always made the right decision. For example during the
beginning of COVID when everyone was told to stay home Starbucks made the decision to send
all their employees home paid for a month and a half. This along with many other decisions they
did to protect and take care of the baristas were ethically the right decisions. Starbucks knows
that if you take care of your employees they will continue to take care of you and ensure that you
are heading towards your goals.

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 3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

I would apply the ethical community of communication and risk management an an

alternative coruse of action. I do beliebe that Starbucks continued to make the right decisions
reguarding how to handle COVID but often there was a lack of communication regaurding when
the new standards. For example when Starbucks made the decision to allow all the baristas who
felt uncomfortable working to be able to stay home paid for a month and a half. Starbucks made
the decision and sent a mass text message to all the baristas at 7pm at night telling them if they
felt uncomfortable working they needed to text their store manager and let them know. This
resulted in me a store manager getting a bunch of text messages and having to try figuring out
what I was supposed to do. Ethically this was the right dicision but the roll out and lack of
communication and frustrating.

I would also apply a stronger risk management course of action. After the initial spreading of
COVID I believe that Starbucks should have been able to better predict any issues and risks that
they would have to work through. The issues like rewriting schedules, staffing, and inventory
should have been better predicted and they should have been able to apply solutions to these
issues ahead of time. I know Starbucks had entire teams of people whos focus was working
through and dealing with COVID related issues. I would have utilized these teams to focus on
any future issues that may arise.

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

I myself would have done much differently after learning what I have learned about ethics.
There are multiple things I believe I had done wrong that were not exactly the correct ethical
decision. Its hard to critize youself when you are making difficult decision based only on what
you know at the time. But I still think it is good to constantly be learning and reflecting on the
past decisions that you made. There were times I believed I was making the right decision but
now looking back I can see that I could have made different decisions. At the time I believed I
was making the best decision, but now I can see that there was an even better decision I wasn’t
aware of.

If I was to go back the different decisions I would be would be around being more epathetic.
I believed at the time that I had to be a tough leader that had to ask a lot of questions. But now I
know that I could trust the ethics of people and know that they were trying their best. I could
trust that Starbucks had given me all the tools and resources that you needed to be successful and
that I could do what was best for the employees rather than what was best for the business.

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 Reference:

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

leadership (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass