Human resource management or HRM at Starbucks is highly interesting due to its unique and untraditional HR strategies. It is important to note that the company primarily utilizes strategic HR, which allows it to be transformational, proactive, supportive, integrated, and organic. Starbucks’s overall strategy is centered around the element of customer experience, where the company wants its stores or chains to be a “third place,” after one’s home and workplace (Leinwand & Davidson, 2016). In other words, delivering such experience is only possible through its human resources or workers providing service to the customers directly. Therefore, the company HR does not utilize standard and bureaucratic measures but instead focuses on promoting its cultural strengths rather than fixing weaknesses. Starbucks puts its employees first since the latter is the main determinant of service quality and customer experience, which is why the company cannot afford a drop in worker performance.
Moreover, HR management at Starbucks puts a great deal of emphasis on the notion of accountability and appraisal for the ones who exhibit the most outstanding level of effectiveness in regards to promoting the company goals. It is stated that “over many years, Starbucks has built a capability to foster a relationship-driven, employees-first approach, which encourages staff to form close bonds with each other” (Leinwand & Davidson, 2016, para. 4). In other words, the company strives to develop and maintain positive relationships with its workers in order to facilitate tighter bond formation both between Starbucks and employees as well as among employees themselves. Such a strategy is a direct example of a strategic HR management approach, where its implementation is organic and proactive, rather than traditional HR methods, which are reactive and focus on problematic points.
It should be noted that Starbucks makes attempts to apply transformational leadership with the use of its HR in order to gain a competitive advantage. It is stated that “at the height of the global financial crisis, when other companies were cutting HR costs wherever they could, Starbucks invested in staff training, including coffee tastings and courses that ultimately qualified for credit at higher education institutions” (Leinwand & Davidson, 2016, para. 4). In other words, the emphasis is put on employee development and growth since its goal of creating the most appealing customer experience relies on worker’s competence at delivering and providing such a service. In addition, the company highly accentuates the importance of inclusivity and diversity since such strategies generate “a welcoming environment for customers of diverse backgrounds,” and thus, “it has built the capability to deliver on that aspiration into its HR processes” (Leinwand & Davidson, 2016, para. 5). Therefore, the company values its employees and uses HR to fully support them because it is a major element of its competitiveness in the market.
However, despite the fact that Starbucks has one of the most progressive, proactive, and employee-centered strategic HR practices, the company still has some problematic areas. For example, some employees report that “Starbucks stores have been reducing hours and, as a result, neutralizing the pay increases” (Starner, 2016, para. 2). In other words, it might be utilizing deceptive HR practices, which are designed to appear beneficial to employees but undermining the core aspects of the employment, such as wages and pay. Therefore, it is a possibility that the company uses strategic HR as a form of brand image enhancement and marketing measure, which means that Starbucks does not adhere to its claims in regards to employee-centered human resource management.
References
Leinwand, P., & Davidson, V. (2016). How Starbucks’s culture brings its strategy to life. Harvard Business Review.
Starner, T. (2016). Starbucks workers claim wage and hour morale issues. HR Dive.