MODULE 3: HUMAN RESOURCES FRAME 1

Module 3

OGL 481

June 4, 2020

Kristen Neuhausel

Arizona State University

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Organization and Situation

The organization I choose is Starbucks Coffee Company. I chose Starbucks because I

have worked for this company for eight years and have had most of my working career with this

company. My role in this organization is a Store Manager of a retail store.

As mentioned above, I am a store manager for my Starbucks location and am generally

in charge of all operations that happen in the store, both operationally and managerially. I was

faced with a situation where I had to have some really tough conversations and lean into my

own leadership.

At the time of this situation, I recently took over a new team and was co-managing with

another store manager to ensure a smooth transition of leadership. I was sitting in the back

office when I saw a lot of whispering and I noticed something was going on. While trying to

remain professional and honestly, not nosey, I stayed out of it. It wasn’t until things got really

intense that my co-manager finally said something to me. He said, “I really do not want to do

anything at this point, but Ian is dating a guy that I cheated on my husband with and he is telling

our entire team all about it”. He was concerned that his personal life is being brought into his

professional life and that the team would look at him differently and lose respect for him. In that

moment, I honestly was just in shock for a lot of reasons and my brain was spinning as to what

my approach will be. I thought to myself, “does this violate a policy?” “what is being said and is

it sexual harassment?” “Is what he is saying true and actually happening in the store?” and “how

do we get this to stop while protecting all the parties involved?”. My next course of action was

to ask more questions. I talked to Jake (my co-manager) and asked him how he found this out.

He said that a partner (employee) came to him because he thought he should know and that it

was making some other partners feel uncomfortable. I was torn between respecting Jake’s
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request by not perusing it any further and starting an investigation and put an end to the

behavior.

I realized that the right thing to do is take care of the team as a whole and make sure that

the environment and culture of the store is protected so I launched an investigation. I called into

our ethics and compliance team and let them know all that I knew. I also knew that this would

upset Jake that I did not respect his wishes and that I had to have a conversation with him; and I

did. I was very transparent with him and told him all the reasons why I needed to start an

investigation. That I wanted to protect him and show the team that this kind of behavior is not

tolerated in our workplace.

The investigation consisted of gathering several statements from partners whom Ian

talked to about Jake. I asked the partner who came to me with this information to give me a list

of everyone she knew that was aware of this situation. I then went to each partner who said that

Ian talked to them and had them write down exactly what he said to them as best as they could

remember. In these statements, I also found out that there were inappropriate pictures being

shown as well. Then, I sent all of these statements to the ethics team and they took the

investigation from there. They reached out to Jake to get statements from him and finally, from

Ian to get his side of the story.

The team decided that it was not a violation of the sexual harassment policy, but it was

against the “gossiping in the workplace” policy and that their recommendation was to put him

on a final written warning. I felt like it was clear sexual harassment and I was really shocked

that we weren’t going to go forward with separation.

Human Resources Frame

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The human resources frame was a major influencer of this situation. In an effort to lean

into model II, I realized that I couldn’t only handle the situation on my own because it was too

close to home. The ethics and compliance team took both sides of the story and decided in that

way. I also think a lot about why the situation happened in the first place. Did Ian feel

comfortable enough with this team members that he did not think it would make anyone feel

uncomfortable? As we learned in the text, every group has informal norms and I believe that the

norms of this group played a part in his decision to act in the way he did (Bolman, 2017). I also

think it was a cause for people to not speak up right away.

This situation was also a perfect example of interpersonal conflict. Before coming to me

as their leader, they spent time talking about it and dealing with it amongst each other. Jake did

not come to me with the situation because he wanted to handle it on his own between him and

Ian. I decided that I did not think that would be the best course of action and used my outside

resource to help mediate the conversation (Bolman, 2017).

Alternative Course of Action

While I believe there was not a lot that I could or would do differently about the

situation itself, after reading the materials this week, I do believe I could have done better

follow up with my team after the fact. In reflection, I wondered why people did not feel

comfortable coming up to me to tell me these things. Next time, I will empower the team to

stand up when they don’t feel like something is right and to not wait for me to ask for

information. I want to encourage my team that doing the right thing is always the most

important aspect of our job and that there would never be repercussions for that. I also would

also try to see if it was because they were responding to peer pressure by not speaking up. This

will help me understand the culture.

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Finally, I reflected on blindness. Did I have any blindness in this situation? I think that

my closeness with Jake and my desire to protect my team at all costs lead to my disappointment

in the result of the investigation. I could have also asked myself more questions such as “what is

really happening in this relationship?” and “what are the motives behind this behavior?”. I do

not think the motive was sexual harassment, instead it was to humiliate him (Bolman, 2017).
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References

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

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