OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource 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.

As I am rounding out fourteen years of service with my organization, I have been able to
advance my career from the barista position up to the role of a Store Manager. Unfortunately,
there are many gaps within middle management knowledge and support for development beyond
the role of the Store Manager. Specifically, my recent experience with this led me to make a
difficult decision to step back into a role of a Shift Supervisor in order to achieve my career
goals.

In the early spring session of this year, through utilizing the Starbucks College Achievement
Plan through ASU, I was able to apply and be hired for a temporary paid internship within the
Human Resources Organization of Starbucks. Unfortunately, due to several years of high
turnover at the District Manager level, the manager I reported to directly was misguided in his
awareness of the support I would need in order to be able to meet the requirements of my current
Store Manager duties while balancing the part-time work of the internship.

I had spent 6 weeks planning and working through the scheduling structure of both roles with
my HR manager, Internship Managers, and District manager to ensure it was a seamless
transition into the workload. Unfortunately, due to my recently externally hired District
Manager’s lack of company structure and operations, he pivoted from a supportive stance to a
hard no. Although it was not within his role to deny the ability for me to complete the internship,
I made the most difficult decision of my career to step out of the store manager role after 5.5
years in order to maintain my obligations that were thoughtfully planned out and agreed upon.

It has now been 6 months since this experience and I am finding more and more that there is
a large opportunity to close a gap within middle-management comprehensive knowledge of
organizational development support and tools as they apply to the employee, or as we are called
Partners, developmental opportunities.

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 2) Describe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

As we read in chapter six of our text, there is a framework for human resources that is based
upon four assumptions. These assumptions include the organization existing to serve humans,
both the organizations and individuals need each other to solicit creativity and talent and fulfill
the needs of salaries, career growth, and opportunities to develop(Bolman & Deal, 2017). The
final assumptions round out the framework by pointing out that if the individual and organization
don’t fit well together, the system can fail on both ends but if the fit is good, then both will
benefit in meaningful ways within the work and ultimately succeed (Bolman & Deal, 2017).

With these four assumptions of the human resources framework in mind, I would say that
in my situation there was a significant amount of positive influence. I have multiple departments
(including the HR manager) working with me to help develop a schedule that benefits my
personal and professional growth within the internship role as well as still maintain the integrity
of my responsibilities as a store manager for the organization.

On the flip side of this, the lack of accountability from these department leaders in regard
to my District Manager created a disjointed experience that didn’t fit well for myself or the
organizational operations. This is where I experienced the most frustration, disengagement
within the working relationship I had with my district manager, and lack of trust within the
systems put in place through our HR career experience processes.

I would go as far as saying that I expressed a few of Argyris’s symptoms of the structure-
person conflict that my district manager caused so late in the process. For instance, I could feel
myself withdrawing which ultimately led to my decision to leave the role of a store manager
after 5.5 years and step back into a shift supervisor role instead of quitting (which I did
contemplate) (Bolman & Deal, 2017). Even now, the thought of this leaves a sour taste in my
mouth, but I had to make that choice in order to overcome a barrier to growth within my
organization.

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

Regarding my situation, I would have the human resources approach be different in the realm
of how the HR philosophy was actually executed as discussed in chapter seven of our text
(Bolman & Deal, 2017). Although the corporate side of the process was supportive and made
a reasonable effort to support the philosophy of creating opportunities to grow skills and
advance the employee’s career through things such as internships, mentorships, and career
site open roles, no one held my district manager accountable for his late violation of this
philosophy.

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 The HR manager should have scheduled a meeting with all of us to clarify and develop the 4-
month scheduling plan, as intended, that would support all parties going forward. This would
have helped give insights to my district manager and allowed us to establish clear
expectations of how the work was going to get done within my store manager role as well as
balancing the work of the internship, but that didn’t happen, unfortunately.

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

Looking back, I would have scheduled more connections with my distrimanagerger to allow
him to feel more included in the decisions being made. This would have eased his mind
enough to support the final schedule that was developed. It also would have kept things well
defined for all parties involved.

I would have also looped in my Regional Director early on in the process as well by asking
for support as they understand the opportunities for career advancement and our human
resources philosophy through first-hand experience.

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 Reference or References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand.