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.

My role at my job is assistant manager, and I am in training to become a store
manager. The situation is the barrier between being able to maintain proper scheduling
while facing data that shows that we are overstaffed, yet our partners are not meeting the
metrics of reaching their preferred hours worked. My store is a low volume café with two
full-time salaried employees, the manager and the assistant manager. Salaried partners
also count on the coverage hours allotted when we are not working on our administrative
responsibilities, which there is a budget for. We are unable to reach 90% accuracy for all
partners in the store, there is an availability need for early am and all day on Sundays,
and if we hire more to fill the gap, then there is a risk of more hours lost per partner. My
district manager wants a couple of partners to transfer to an alternative location, however,
none of the partners do not want to go.

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

Our structure of the organization is a matrix structure, and we receive information
from many specialties. The magnitude of the company demands this complex structure.
Retail finance officers, operational directors, and business analysts maintain the
algorithm used to project the right number of hours of labor, details into where they
should be allocated, and what an analysis on our staffing to hours ratios. Currently, there
is a new labor program in place where we identify each partner’s preferred hours, and the
minimum and maximum levels of what they wanted to be scheduled. The goal is for the
system to submit the data to an excel sheet that is programmed to analyze our staffing
levels for each store. The new standard is to have all hourly partners reach their preferred
hours at a 90% rate; however, we are at 87%, with the lowest partner rate in our store
being at 70%.
Our district manager uses a similar tool, but she has a broader scope. It shows her
that our district is overstaffed, and our area has a couple of hundred partners overstaffed.
There are some stores with shortages while others have overages. This is flagging in the
system, and there is a need to balance each of the district’s portfolios before allowing for
any more hiring in each store.
An additional layer to the structure is the ability to be flexible to hourly rated
partner’s availability requirements. The minimum number of hours a partner needs to
work is twelve hours a week, and to reach benefit eligibility, the requirement is twenty
hours per week. The requirement for partners is to be available 150% more than their
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 preferred hours reported in the system. Our company goal for baristas is twenty-four
hours per week, and for thirty-four hours per week for shift supervisors. However, there
are restrictions on many partner availabilities which restricts the ability to schedule them.
Our analysis has shown gaps in our scheduling, and there is a risk that hiring a new
partner to fill the need will lower the previous partners’ hours in to maintain balance on
the roster each week.

3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.
The current alternative course of actions we are working through currently is to
have partners transfer, open their availability, or to lower their preferences in the system.
Other than transferring, having open and vulnerable conversations has helped us to be
able to open a few availabilities and submit accurate numbers for preferences. Baristas
were under the impression that placing thirty-eight preferred hours would have sent data
to the corporation as a survey or willingness response, rather than a barrier to creating a
schedule. Using the tools in the structure has allowed us to communicate and share the
data with our team to increase their understanding of what the preferred hours meant.
Another way we have been able to increase the numbers in the system has been to
lend a partner to a store needing to balance their staffing requirements according to the
system. While this is a short-term solution due to the partner’s resilience to completing a
transfer, this has allowed us to balance the needs for those who are wanting to reach their
preferred hours and increase their percentage.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently give what you have learned
about this frame.
Knowing what I know now, I would have spent more time diving deeper into the
new tools to understand the why behind them being implemented. I completed the tasks
required of me without understanding the reasoning behind it. I would have had the
conversations with the team earlier on and shared the resources sooner, especially before
approving new availabilities. I did notice the system flagging earlier before the problem
became apparent, and I mentioned it to my peer coach, but he did not see it as an issue.
His greater focus was on the partner turning in their two weeks if the availability was not
approved. During a recent check in with my district manager, she had agreed that
approving the limited availabilities had not been smart and it was not supportive of
business needs. We spent time diving deeper into the staffing and planning tools while
providing me resources to review when it came to partner availability not meeting the
store needs.

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