Employees’ Motivation and Willing to Work for a Company

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Internal Analysis

SWOT analysis

- Strengths

One of the major strengths of the company is the strong brand and its popular image; this has made it very friendly with young people, particularly students. Starbucks designs a modern website which is attractive to users and easy to understand. This is very important in this digital generation when most people rely on the Internet to gather information about their needs. The loyalty arrangement introduced by Starbucks is another significant advantage, an intelligent strategy adopted early on in Starbucks’s development. Encouraging consumers to increase their frequent purchase through the use of loyalty cards is now a successful marketing that has been followed by many companies in different business.

- Weaknesses

Starbucks has been suffering financial difficulties in recent years, even resulting a loss (Wilkes Group, 2012.), which has created a disadvantage in terms of having the assets to invest in new products or expanding its store network. The poor performance has experienced some decline in its own values which also can result in decreased investment. The employees have complained so much about working conditions such as long, tried shifts and erratic schedules that are planned only one week in advance. According to the New York Times, things have been slow to change, and many Starbucks store managers are to blame. Starbucks has a lot of turnover in management and baristas. This is a serious problem of Starbucks because it makes the company waste a lot of time and money to train their staff from the beginning. The reasons are considered to boss behaviour, high stress, continuing to increase responsibility without increasing payment.

- Opportunities

The taste of coffee and the amount of consumption, particularly as part of the working day routine, is continuing to increase and showing little of slowing down. Starbucks has the opportunity to focus on the developing countries where there is no Starbucks store, such as India. Developing countries like South Africa, Brazil should also be given more attention from the company. The relaxation of the licensing policy has provided an opportunity Starbucks to expand their offering in coffee houses to include alcohol. This will attract foreign investment and new markets, for example developing caffeine free drinks for those consumers concerned about the health risks from caffeine. Starbucks also has the chances to cooperate with other companies in different business to expand their businesses and recruit more members, as well as invest in new products by promoting their food and beverage services.

- Threats

The increase on healthy lifestyles and reducing caffeine is considering as significant threat to coffee house companies like Starbucks. The formulas will be finding suitable alternatives for customers who cannot or choose not to drink caffeinated coffee. Climate change may be a threat to coffee production and it can increase the cost for raw materials. It is important for Starbucks to remain the relationships with its consumers; the loyalty card is a good way of performing two-way communication. However, Starbucks must be aware that not all messages to consumers are promotions; Cohen (2011) stated that 90% of communications should be sharing information but not sales pitches. Attraction from other competitors also a huge threat for the company when it may get Starbucks employees quit their current job. As mentioned in weaknesses of Starbucks, the company pays a lot to develop more systems and training programs, so it would be a huge damage for Starbucks’ assets if an employee leave to look for a new career.

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- Starbucks’s issue

Effective holding people, especially in a large business, can be very challenging. In the last three years, the combination of a complex labour market and changes in laws, from a rising of minimum wage to fair-schedule legislation that would discourage employees like “clopenings”, has increased costs for employers in many parts of the country. Therefore, many employees of Starbucks have lost enthusiasm with their jobs and these people may prefer to work for a new company. Like other restaurants and retail companies around the world, Starbucks is wrestling with the effects of minimum wage increases. Some employees said Starbucks had not enhanced pay for existing workers where minimum wages have increased, which created a situation where new hires are paid about the same amount as more experienced ones. For that reason, an online petition accusing Starbucks of cutbacks in work hours, hurting both employee morale and customer’s services, has been signed by more than 9000 employees of Starbucks. Additionally, in 2014, Starbucks promised to provide part-time employees with more consistent schedules every week, and to post their schedules at least 10 days before working day. The company said it would stop making workers to tolerate the sleep-depriving ritual known as a “clopening”, which requires closing a store at night only to come back early the next morning to help open it. But Starbucks has broken these promises and the employees often receive their schedules one week or less, and the schedules vary substantially every few weeks. Hence, if Starbucks does not have suitable solutions for these problems, the company may suffer a great loss of their assets and time.

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- Management theory related to issue

According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs theory, human needs the physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization form a sort of hierarchy.

- Physiological needs: a person’s needs for food, drink, shelter, sexual satisfation and other physical needs.

- Safety needs: a person’s needs for security and protection from physical and emotional harm

- Social needs: a person’s needs for affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship

- Esteem needs: a person’s for internal esteem factors (such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement) and external esteem factors (such as status, recognition and attention)

- Self-actualization needs: a person’s needs