OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA- Human Resource Frame Worksheet

1) Restatement of the situation.

The situation that I will be discussing in this personal case analysis stems from
my move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. In SF I worked as a supervisor at a high
functioning, standard following Starbucks, but my new store in LA was anything but
that. This case study will dive into my troubles with transitioning to a different culture
and trying to make overall improvements on day-to-day operations.

2) How the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

At this store we have numerous human resources available to aid us in a

successful shift, most of which we were not taking advantage of. While traditional HR
involves the management of the people within your organization, human resources
specifically are the traits, competencies, motivations and advantages that each member
brings to the table (Bolman & Deal, 2017). From a basic standpoint, the human
resources in a Starbucks location refer to the manager, the supervisors and the baristas.
While everyone is given a week of training to solidify basic concepts, from my
perspective, many of these skills were not taught to them, or since they were not used,
they were forgotten.
From a supervisor standpoint, our biggest resources are our baristas. They are
there to support us throughout the day to aid in the creation of a smooth day and
transition. There are numerous tasks required of us throughout the day, but the AM
supervisors were not taking advantage of downtime. While I understand that after
rushes you want to take a second to breathe, supervisors are responsible for delegating
tasks to baristas. She would allow the partners to stand around either chatting or on
their phones instead of maintaining a clean store or restocking. A lack of delegation was
a root cause for the conflict, as the supervisor had a tendency to do everything herself
without asking for help. Not only was this creating a backup of tasks throughout the day
(and stress for the partner who would come in later that day), it was also a key catalyst
to the stress she experienced on a daily basis.

3) How I would use the human resources for an alternative course of action.

The first thing I would do is have a supervisor meeting in which we could

highlight the problems everyone was having and create solutions that benefit all
individuals involved. Here is where we would discover that delegation is in fact a major
catalyst for the conflict, and we could work towards developing that competency for all
of the supervisors (myself included, I am definitely not perfect). An amazing tactic to
assist in getting stuff done while it’s busy is to have a partner do a task before going on a
break; this is helpful for a couple of reasons. First, you are slowly maintaining the store,
whether it is restocking, creating preps, sweeping the lobby or taking out trash, stuff is
getting done. The next aspect of this is kind of funny, because it increases the motivation
to do the task quickly; since they are going on a break when they are done, usually they
get it done quickly as opposed to lollygagging.

“A good fit benefits both. Individuals find meaningful and satisfied work, and
organizations get the talent and energy needed to succeed” (Bolman & Deal, 2017,
p.123). This goes for the AM baristas too, overcoming challenges makes the end of the
day so rewarding (a feeling I rather love) which has been taken from them since there
are no expectations given to them besides helping complete customer orders. Next, if
the PM baristas came into a store which wasn’t a hot mess, they would be satisfied with
the amount of work required on a daily basis as well as retain the energy required to
come in with a smile on their face. No one wants to go into work when they hate their
job, and having kind and supportive teammates can only do so much, so to ensure that
everyone actually enjoys coming in, we need to equally distribute the workload.

4) What I would do or not do differently given what you have learned

about this frame.

We have a concept at Starbucks known as the skill vs will gap. This process forces
us to ask ourselves whether the disconnect was due to the partner not knowing how or
what to do (skill) or if they knew what they should be doing, and just didn’t care (will).
After 4 years at a company, with a couple years under your belt as a supervisor, there
theoretically should be no gaps in skill, unless they had never been coached (which is
unlikely). This leads us to fit; if the individual does not step into their role, there is a
high chance that the role isn’t meant for them, it doesn’t tailor to that person's
strengths. “When the fit between individual and system is poor, one or both suffer.
Individuals are exploited or exploit the system” (Bolman & Deal, 2017, p.123). The PM
felt exploited by the morning team, forced to clean every inch of the store, while we
knew they were standing around doing nothing. So if I was in my manager's position, I
would have asked her to step up, or step out.
After contemplating this frame and the actions I took, there isn’t much I would
do differently. Something I value about myself (and my baristas value about me) is my
inclination to stand up for myself and my team. Due to her lack of authority in managing
her day part, not only was I forced to clean up the mess, but my baristas were
responsible for doing a lot of the physical cleaning. As a supervisor, we have many
responsibilities outside of floor related operations, we must spend a good amount of
time off the floor doing money, counting inventory, putting in orders and pulling food
for the following days. So while I am in the back doing my job, my baristas are
responsible for watching the floor and helping customers while simultaneously trying to
catch up on cleaning (which I absolutely help with every second I can). You could argue
the AM baristas have the same challenges, the only difference is that there are 7 of them
and only 2 for my day part.
 Refrence
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice,
and leadership (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass