>Starbucks is, in effect, inviting its workers, from the day they join the company, to study whatever they like, and then leave whenever they like — knowing that many of them, degrees in hand, will leave for better-paying jobs.
> Even if they did, their experience “would be accreted to our brand, our reputation and our business,” Howard D. Schultz, the company’s chairman and chief executive, said in an interview. “I believe it will lower attrition, it’ll increase performance, it’ll attract and retain better people.”
This is pretty good long-term thinking on Starbucks' part...On one-hand, there's the obvious cost...on the other, I imagine that a significant number of the best, too-qualified-to-be-just-a-barista baristas leave after two or so years, anyway. Now that there's an extra benefit to joining Starbucks, SB could conceivably attract a higher number of higher-quality non-careerists without a substantially greater attrition in workforce loss.
Besides the cost, another downside for Starbucks is that, OK, maybe your part-time studying baristas won't be so on-task...Maybe, but I doubt it. High-achievers stuck in mundane jobs may not perform to their potential...but these aren't people "stuck" as being bariatas. They purportedly agreed to become baristas with the expectation of getting a degree and then a "real" job...when you have that kind of open path in front of you, you're not as susceptible to low morale on the job. At least that's been in my experience, where I loved doing labor jobs in the summer between school years.
People are a big asset for Starbucks. They are trying to make a visit to SB a personal, warm experience. And the staff is key to that, they don't want grumpy and hate-this-job-a-lot people.
Once when I was in SB, the doors to the personnel room were open and I saw bunch of hand drawn things, hand written colourful weekly goals (rather than just printed), etc. That shows their, management people, approach and goals.
So I think this decision fits in pretty well in their long term mission.
The semi-unspoken part of this is that given the way the economy is, Starbucks will likely never lack job applicants, so even if they help existing employees get better jobs and leave Starbucks, all they are doing creating new entry-level job openings, while raising brand awareness, and also ensuring that their departing employees are going to jobs that will help them afford 5$ coffees. ;-)
Yeah, because people keep having children, that they can't or can barely afford to raise and/or college-educate. It's unfortunate, as it's a wonderful thing that everyone should have a chance at doing. But I'd never do that if I was unable to provide for and give a good education to my spawn. Sadly, many people do so with no thought for the future other than thinking the state will fix it, burdening all the rest of us because we're kind.
#Edit, yeah for some odd reason this opinion isn't flying so well with someone on HN. I am disappointed, I figured people are reasonable and can see the merit of not wanting to bring a child into this world that they can't take care of. Perhaps people would rather they bring a child into this world, innocent and naive, and then throw it to the wolves while crying to the state to fix a problem they created and inflicted on an innocent? Shame on you.
While i admit your argument seems reasonable in certain countries, I don't think it applies well to the US. The average number of children per family in the US is below 1 in most states[1]. And even if you take the conditional average (that is only consider families who HAVE children) then that is still hardly 2 [1].
Now does that really seem like an unreasonable number of children for a couple to have? I mean if 1 or 2 children are too much for the average family, do you suggest that only the extremely wealthy should reproduce?
So i suppose people are downvoting you because they feel that your comment isn't a reasonable debate, but is more of an irrelevant rant.
"Now does that really seem like an unreasonable number of children for a couple to have? I mean if 1 or 2 children are too much for the average family, do you suggest that only the extremely wealthy should reproduce?"
I think you're over exaggerating here. I'm not saying the wealthy should only be allowed to have kids. Nor am I prescribing the "amount" of children anyone should have. I'm simply stating/complaining about people that have kids that they can't afford to take care of. I think that's horrible.
And let's be honest, most poor people do not have the resources, or healthy social support structures from family to raise a healthy adult through childhood. I'm all for communities taking care of those in need, and those who end up having kids they can't take care of. But we all need to understand that it is reckless behavior on the part of those that create those children knowing full well that they can not take care of them like they deserve.
Why is "going to college" a requirement for being a healthy adult? It's economically advantageous to many in the US, but it's by no means a life requirement! What if you want to be a guitarist/car mechanic/HVAC specialist/off the grid survivalist/cosmetologist (not cosmologist)/etc?
There are plenty of poor people with resources and healthy social support structures. There are entire countries full of them. Being poor and being part of a fractured social structure are different, while overlapping. US law and society nudge them ever closer but that's our problem -- it's not part of the human condition.
It's immoral to bring children into this world that you can not take care of. Period. What part of that don't you understand? What part of that simple statement do you want to twist and mangle to suit your worldview?
Are you suggesting that only people who have already saved the couple of hundred thousands of dollars it takes to raise a child should be allowed to have a child?
Or are you prepared to accept that some people with seemingly stable jobs have children and make plans and start saving but that stuff happens and those people end up in difficult situations?
I'm not going to bother responding. I get down modded anyways for perfectly reasonable comments on uncomfortable topics. You can figure out what I have to say from my previous comments.
Pretty harsh standard, especially as "can not take care of" is left undefined and presumed pretty high in this rather affluent culture. There's a vast difference between "incapable of caring for children" vs "earns above the US poverty line, which itself is above some 87% of everyone on the planet" (or even "above my own arbitrary standard which is well into the 90th percentile of world population").
Sure, if you can't care for kids don't make 'em. But if you're going to demonize what sounds like a broad swath of the population, you'd best define the crux of your proposition, to wit "care for".
By take care of, I mean "feed, clothe, educate to higschool level, pay for standard/basic medical care, and provide a relatively safe environment to grow up in". Is that really all that bad of a "requirement"?
If the parents need to ask for assistance from the state for basic things such as the items above, then I'd argue that they're not able to take care of children. Most of the items are given to them by the state anyways, and they still don't "manage".
Obviously that's a rhetorical question. You don't actually want to know, you're just fishing. Because no answer will be sufficient for you, you'll just claim "that doesn't encompass" all poor people.
So, let's skip all that, and you tell me what your actual point/argument is?
I didn't downvote you, and I can see where you're coming from, but really, "a problem they created?" People could take care of their children alright if they could have a trade that took them, say, 5 hours a day and bought them all the necessities of modern life: food, shelter, health, leisure, internet and education. Is that really so much to ask? We have such high levels of production. I hear some socially developed countries manage it just fine.
>can see the merit of not wanting to bring a child into this world that they can't take care of
So you are useless if you don't have a college education? Doomed to poverty and failure? And that not being able to afford college (of all things) constitutes "can't take care of?" That's the implication.
Personally I think too many people have a college education.
Nothing fuzzy here. It is an extremely well-calculated ROI move from corporate. Win hearts and minds of the bean-proles on the front lines, and you get increasesed productivity via an enhanced sense of belongining.
That's true. Public companies have an obligation to not waste money. But it's still admirable because they've attempted to find ways that altruism and respect can further their profits, when they didn't need to.
It's kind of like saying there's nothing warm and fuzzy about people doing volunteer work because they ultimately derive self-satisfaction from it.
Culture isn't that easy to fabricate without some level of sincerity throughout the organization. And even if it was, who loses if everyone is happier to belong in the organization?
Starbucks didn't crawl to the cushier half of the Fortune 500 on a corporate mission statement of "chill vibes". Would of made them has-beans (had-beans?) long ago.
You're right in that all parties win. But we would be all joshing ourselves if we didn't acknowledge that the muse beckoning to the boardroom here was the profit-motive.
I'm not doubting their were some well-intentioned individuals involved in this initiative - hats off to them. Just saying let's be realistic about why this is happening.
You seem to suggest that "all parties winning" is a random, unintended by-product of the process being ultimately profit-driven (which apparently is nefarious).
This is false. While there may well exist exploitation, the vast majority of successful businesses, especially those that are successful on the longer term, were and are successful because their profit/employee/customer value proposition is one of win/win/win.
It's important to get terminology right: It's "win" as in "win/win" situation, not "victorious forever". It means "better than the best alternative", not "best".
Is spending $8 on a milky Starbucks coffee a better value for the customer than the immediate alternatives to spending it, including not spending it? In that case, he "wins".
Is keeping the capital invested in the assets that make up Starbucks a better value for the investors than not? Then the owners "win".
And is taking a job at Starbucks a better deal than taking any alternative job available? It seems a whole lot more pleasant to me than most other low-paid, low-skilled jobs I can think of. If so, the employee "wins".
This education effort will likely make a Starbucks job even more attractive than the alternatives, for rather little money, making working at Starbucks a "win" for more people.
I rather doubt it's a calculated ROI move. I did calculating ROI for my CFA exams and I doubt that would fly. I suspect weirdly enough they are trying to do good.
Trader Joe's has hand drawn signs and Hawaiian t-shirts. They are drawn to spec to create an impression of "fun" in the customer's mind, but they are very much assembly-line product.
Might that fun not also rub off on TJ employees as it rubs off on customers? If my job was to put boxes on shelves, I'd rather do it in a Hawaiian shirt uniform than a plain black uniform.
In N Out famously pays its employees far above minimum wage, even at entry level and offers fantastic benefits. All managers make >$100K annually. They have one of the lowest employee turnover rates in the food services industry, despite paying their employees more than enough to pay for an education and transition to a white collar career. I know friends from high school who started working there at 16, continued through college (and paid their way), then chose to continue on as managers at In N Out, as it was far and away a better immediate career option (with the potential to move to corporate after a few years as managers) than their others.
Schultz's comments lead me to believe that he's well aware of In N Out's model.
I'm sure turnover is already fairly high, so this is just inviting motiviated, intelligent kids to come compete for jobs with them. I'm going to buy a pound of coffee now.
> Even if they did, their experience “would be accreted to our brand, our reputation and our business,” Howard D. Schultz, the company’s chairman and chief executive, said in an interview. “I believe it will lower attrition, it’ll increase performance, it’ll attract and retain better people.”
This is pretty good long-term thinking on Starbucks' part...On one-hand, there's the obvious cost...on the other, I imagine that a significant number of the best, too-qualified-to-be-just-a-barista baristas leave after two or so years, anyway. Now that there's an extra benefit to joining Starbucks, SB could conceivably attract a higher number of higher-quality non-careerists without a substantially greater attrition in workforce loss.
Besides the cost, another downside for Starbucks is that, OK, maybe your part-time studying baristas won't be so on-task...Maybe, but I doubt it. High-achievers stuck in mundane jobs may not perform to their potential...but these aren't people "stuck" as being bariatas. They purportedly agreed to become baristas with the expectation of getting a degree and then a "real" job...when you have that kind of open path in front of you, you're not as susceptible to low morale on the job. At least that's been in my experience, where I loved doing labor jobs in the summer between school years.