Employees that care: Valuable team-building lessons from Starbucks
By: Shraddha Shenoy
Tags: Starbucks, Lessons Learned, Teamwork, Business, Organizational Culture

Employees that care: Valuable team-building lessons from Starbucks

Every Starbucks employee is a partner in the farm-to-cup journey. They are also, literally, referred to as partners. At first, this practice struck me as an Ivy League MBA executive’s magnum opus — nothing more than a banal attempt to be featured in Great Places To Work. The kind of thing that CEOs love talking about at conferences. Having spent eight months as a Starbucks partner, I’ve come to realize that ‘partner’ is more than just a seven-letter word. It’s the first and the most crucial step in building an organization in which employees truly care.

To backtrack a little, I started working with Starbucks at the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown in Canada. It had always been on my bucket list, and I unexpectedly got the job during a short visit to Vancouver. I continued working there during weekends even after I got a full-time job because it gave me a deep sense of satisfaction/happiness/optimism — enough to give up my weekends.

Credits: Starbucks

I have never seen employees wanting to go above and beyond in the way that I saw at Starbucks. And here’s what I believe is working:

1. Pass the baton (but first, prepare!)

Starbucks has arguably one of the most robust training programs offered by any food chain in the world. It’s a two-week immersive experience during which partners spend time alternating between theory and practical/experiential learning. Every partner completes modules that cover topics ranging from Starbucks’ history to the perfect cup of coffee. Starbucks ensures that the training period is not rushed, and invests in making sure partners know what they’re doing. For instance - we’re supposed to taste all the drinks we learn to make. That’s a huge investment upfront considering the fact that we learn to make at least 25 drinks (costing $5 on average).

Once trained, baristas are given ample freedom to take decisions around their area of work. A well-run Starbucks typically tries to minimize the number of times shift-supervisors/managers have to intervene. Baristas can offer to re-make drinks, offer to refund, offer samples — no permissions necessary. Anything to make the moment right!

2. Lead from the front

This is a bit contentious because not every Starbucks is run the same. In a short span of time, I’ve worked at two different stores. At both the stores, the managers and shift-supervisors were true leaders (s/o to Amanda, Darcy, Sarah, Ryon). They would take on the heavier load of the work, not ask baristas to do something they wouldn’t themselves do. They always exhibited behaviour they wanted to instil. Something as trivial as cleaning the restrooms — that’s something shift-supervisors would do, not the baristas. Similarly, the good ones would almost always do the heavy-lifting and delegate less strenuous tasks to baristas.

3. Trust — the customer AND the employee

One of the peculiar things about Starbucks is the trust they promote within the company. “Always believe in the good side of people”. Try ordering something at Starbucks and claiming that the milk wasn’t right or that you had ordered a syrup but didn’t get it, they will remake the drink — no questions asked because trust is key. Same goes for partners — if they claim something happened, the manager’s default stance should be to trust the person. Although there are people who take advantage of this (surprise!), I believe it does more good than harm. It builds an intimate connection between the brand and people, which keeps making them come back (remember the math behind acquisition vs retention?).

4. Be transparent

During the early months of COVID-19, Starbucks did an excellent job of keeping partners informed of everything that was happening within the company. District managers took the time to set up zoom calls with individual store managers and partners (these were paid-for!). They were also transparent about the financial position of the company, ensuring we knew what to expect.

On any regular day, our sales figures, partner compensation across different levels are common knowledge and accessible to every partner.

5. Care

This is kind of a no-brainer. If you want people to care, start by caring first. Starbucks puts its money where its mouth is. It offers partners support in the form of mental health tools, a care fund that can be accessed by any partner in need, career growth opportunities, adoption reimbursement, tuition reimbursement, stock options, health coverage, weekly mark outs (free coffee), 24x7 helpline for partners in distress. And that’s just some of the things they have formal programs in place for.

During the early months of COVID-19, district managers would reach out to any partner who had tested positive for COVID-19. They would even reach out to and assure any partner who was a contact for somebody that tested positive. I personally had two phone calls with my district manager (s/o to Leah) who did everything to assure that Starbucks was there for us.