Starbucks Corp. is changing its scheduling system so that fewer employees will work more hours at its coffee shops.The program aims to reduce the company's labor costs and improve sales by fostering familiarity between customers and employees.
Many baristas have complained that under the old scheduling system it was too difficult to secure enough hours on the clock each week. Above, baristas at a Starbucks in Manhattan.
Starbucks, based in Seattle, introduced its program about a week ago as part of a broader effort to revive the company. A sales slowdown has prompted the chain to shut stores.
"The customer's favorite experience is when the people behind the counter know them," said Craig Russell, Starbucks vice president for U.S. store services. Baristas, the employees who make individual coffee drinks, will "be able to get you going faster by knowing what you already want."
The new program also is intended to address the longtime complaint among some baristas, who are paid hourly, that it is too difficult to secure enough hours on the clock each week. Starbucks, which hasn't guaranteed full-time hours for nonmanagement store workers, is creating a full-time description that aims to give those employees at least 32 hours of work a week.
But the Industrial Workers of the World, a union that is trying to organize Starbucks workers, says the new system doesn't adequately address workers' scheduling complaints because it offers no guarantee that workers will be scheduled to work 32 hours. The program requires that full-time employees are available to work 70% of the hours during which their store is open, which the union deems too high, said Daniel Gross, an IWW organizer.
"Since they're not guaranteeing anything for us," said Liberte Locke, a Starbucks barista in New York, "I feel like it's unfair for them to demand so much availability."
Mr. Russell said that in test markets workers liked the program because eventually it gave them more-regular schedules. He said the labor-cost improvements will come from a lower turnover rate and lower training costs.
Part-time workers must be able to work three shifts, or 16 hours, a week. If they are unable to do that without a compelling reason, workers may be "separated" from the company, according to a memo on the program obtained by the IWW.
Starbucks declined to verify the memo but confirmed that workers who couldn't meet a minimum-availability standard in six months would be directed toward leaving the company.
By: Janet Adamy
Wall Street Journal; October 6, 2008
