OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Politcal Frame Worksheet

Cassidy Carmichael
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.
• Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.
My role within Starbucks is shift supervisor. I have been in the shift supervisor
role for going on four years now. I started as a barista but since I had manager experience
at a different company before I worked for Starbucks, they promoted me to shift only
after about five months. My role is to take care of the cash drawers each morning, along
with some paperwork type of things like submitting product orders. I also control the
floor and I make sure that everyone is in a role that they can be successful in. The
situation that I want to analyze for the remainder of the class is the sudden loss of support
from the corporate side of things that has happened within the last few years. Starbucks
started to become a lot more strict and somewhat harsh with their rules and expectations.
I know for a lot of places the pandemic helped them change some things for the better,
but it was kind of alarming to me while at Starbucks. Suddenly we had two partners get
fired right on the spot, along with not having free access to food and drinks while not on
the clock, a benefit we had during COVID times, the absurd amount of labor that was cut,
along with changing the minimum hours that you needed to work jumped from 15 hours
a week to 22 hours a week.
• Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.
According to our textbook, organizations depend on their environment for resources they
need to survive and they are inevitably enmeshed with external constituents whose
expectations or demands must be heeded. They also need to master many of the basic
skills of indiviual managers, which include developing an agenda, mapping the
environment and managing relationships. (Bolman, 1997, page 233). I think Starbucks
honestly has mastered the basic skills of management, they have been around for over
fifty years and it is clear to me that they do know what they are doing. However, I think
when it comes to partners voicing their concerns they don't do a good job of hearing us
out. So the managing relationships is I think they fall, especially with the situtation I am
talking about.
I knew many partners who tried to speak up about the labor shortage issue but were left
with no change or where forced to find work elsewhere to make ends meet. I assume that
the labor shortage happened because of COVID and the amount of money they lost due
to having stores be closed for long periods of time and they also had raised their mimium
wage by a lot. I think both of those things back to back caused them to lose money so
they decided the best way to go about trying to gain it back is for them to cut our
paychecks by cutting the labor.
 • Recommend how you would use organizational politics for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.
I think that Starbucks could be using their same skills but just in a way that is more
supportive than what they are giving us. Since we have been on the up since COVID, I
would use their same skills and help support the partners. I would make sure the labor
that was avaliable was an amount that was reasonable and enough that people were able
to work their whole shift and not have to worry about getting sent home early. I just know
that Starbucks makes a crazy amount of money each year that it should be no problem to
make something like this happen.
• Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.
After learning about this frame, I would want Starbucks to stick with their core values
and make sure everyone feels supportive and makes it the Starbucks environment that
everyone knows and loves.

Reference or References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1997). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership. Jossey-Bass Publishers.