The Starbucks Organization

Introduction

The purpose of our group for this quarter was to increase our understanding of how a team operates in a retail environment within a hierarchal organization. To achieve this goal our group decided to conduct an interview of a team within the Starbucks organization. The Starbucks Company began in Seattle 1971, with just a handful of stores. The company now has over 16,000 locations worldwide and they are in the maturity phase of the business cycle. Starbucks has built it’s empire on the mission of creating an amazing customer experience and treating it’s workers with the utmost respect, going as far as to refer to them as partners as opposed to employees.

Although Starbucks is a large organization, our group chose to focus on a team at a single retail location. We conducted our interview at the Starbucks located in Stanwood, WA at 27008 92nd Ave NW. This location was opened in 2005 and was originally equipped with 25 employees. The store later downsized to 16 employees based on customer flow and sales. This Starbucks location sells a wide variety of coffee from whole beans to an array of drinks. The store also sells an assortment of food items and merchandise.

The recent recession affected the Starbucks Company as a whole by reducing sales. The specific effect on the Stanwood location cannot be fully determined because the store opened during a time that had already seen a reduction in sales. The effect can be measured in some regards by the increase in sales in the last few years. The store averaged $18,000 a week in sales in 2007, and the location now averages nearly $28,000 a week in sales. The only competitors that Starbucks has in Stanwood are locally owned espresso stands.

Team Interviewed & Primary Team Interaction Issues

The team we chose to interview offers an interesting dynamic. We interviewed a team of three individuals that often work together on the floor at the same time. The team consists of the store manager (Grant Haines), a shift supervisor (Denise Gibson), and a barista (Jess Wachie). There can be more baristas on the floor during a shift but these are the three levels of the hierarchy at the store level and the area we chose to focus on. The store manager is responsible for the store as a whole and reports periodically to a district manager. The manager is responsible for all hiring, firing, and disciplinary action. The store manager will also work on the floor as needed. The shift supervisor is responsible for the efficient operation of all partners on a specific shift. A barista is responsible for specific tasks assigned to them by the shift supervisor. All three individuals are commonly working on the floor at the same time during a shift. Although the store manager is in charge of the store, the shift supervisor is responsible for the shift and the deployment of all partners on the floor, including