OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities 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 at Starbucks Coffee Company. I have been a partner for over nine years. 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 another location that needs
partners.

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

This company’s mission and values are the foundation of the ethics at hand in
Starbucks, and the company tries to always do the right thing. The company has an ethics
and compliance department that anyone can call with questions or concerns, and their
main job is to ensure that we are in line with the values of the company. Alongside of
this, Starbucks ensures ethical crop sourcing utilizing the standardized approach of the
C.A.F.E. practices, which stands are coffee and farmer equity. This means the two major
sides of the business are equally beneficial. The new values of the company portray our
ethical foundation. Through craft, courage, results, belonging, and joy, we define our
ethical understanding as an organization based on responsibility, inclusiveness, and
respect. The company believes that it has both a corporate and social responsibility.
The ethics of the organization influenced the situation of allowing partners to
choose their dayparts and preferred hours. Starbucks consistently seeks feedback for what
it can do better to make it the best place to work, and one of the responses was the need
for consistent and predictable hours to fit lifestyle needs. Upholding their integrity,
Starbucks delivered a new labor model to work towards getting the right number of hours
to the right partners. However, many stores are currently working towards balancing their
rosters to the right dayparts across all stores in their districts to achieve this goal.

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 3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.
The soul of Starbucks was created by Howard Shultz in his vision of creating a
company that his father would have been proud to work for. The symbolism in his story
of why the organization provides so many benefits to partners is one that leads and
inspires other organizations to pursue after. The framework that ethically best fits this
scenario to navigating partner availability is the human resource framework, which is the
extended family. Ethics are caring, and the leadership contribution is love. Leaders
approach their teams through compassion and concern of their needs and desires (Bolman
& Deal, 2021). As the cost-of-living skyrockets, the need for hours and consistency at the
place of employment is valid and necessary.
Leading through vulnerability with people at the heart will allow for the
conversation to be met in a non-threatening way. Through empathy and transparency,
people are more willing to be open to trying new approaches to achieving what needs to
be done. With this approach, I would hope that the limitations of partner hours available
would be met with love, care, and willingness to help find a solution that works for both
the store and the partner. As the hours directly affect the partner, this is the most
important community to consider.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about ethics.
Ethically, I think the best approach to this situation is full transparency. While
maintaining respect for each person’s ability to balance work, school, and life, I believe
the best approach is to have honest conversations. There are limitations to how many
hours a store can provide, and there are many factors that go into the algorithm that
projects the allotment of hours. The best approach to this is to have conversations, and to
let the team come up with their best solutions to get them what they need.
I stand by the decision to work on this in the human resource frame as this is
closely related to the human resource factor of the team. In a structural sense, I am
obligated by my position to remain within the boundaries and communicate the
resources. From a political view, I do not have much of a pull, but there are other entities
that have an influence such as the tenured partners as well as district manager’s requests.
However, those are not a major concern now. Symbolically, the mission and values are
where we need to maintain our approach by ensuring we are providing the best
experience for our partners.

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 Reference
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(7th ed.) San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass