Are You Willing to Wait for Quality? Are Employees?

In a Wall Street Journal online article entitled Starbuck Baristas Told No More Than Two Drinks writer Julie Jargon relates that Starbucks is trying to improve the quality of its product by slowing down the baristas that make the drinks. (I find it amusing that someone with the last name of Jargon writes on Starbucks, the place where people ask the question "Why is a small called a tall? And why is a grande the medium size?") Ms. Jargon relates that making coffee at Starbucks has become too assembly-line-ish and as a result the quality has suffered. Workers were trying to meet the demand of lines as the register and lines at the drive-thru and thus making multiple drinks at a time. Rather than steaming milk for one drink they were steaming milk for mulitple drinks at a time, etc. So Starbucks has told its baristas (the people who make the drinks) to slow down and make no more than two drinks at a time and explain to customers that the wait is the price for a quality drink (that and the $4 you are spending on the drink.)

Now I have to admit that my first take on this headline was that they are telling to employees that they cannot drink more than two drinks a day. I thought perhaps they were trying to go through a massice detox effort. After all I have seen some seriously wired employees. But at the same time with some of the lines I have seen someone seriously wired was needed to work fast enough to handle the demand. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out. There is one component that will make sure that this fails.

That component is the feedback given to the employees. If they now receive negative feedback for not serving people fast enough, subsequently getting poor performance reviews, they will find ways to short cut the process in order to meet the demand. The quality effort will fall flat on its face. After all the store manager does not get an immediate measure of quality of drink produced, but they do see lines and they do hear complaints about how long it is taking. So managers may be tempted to short cut the rules or they will put additional pressure on employees to be faster. Either way, the corporate effort is not successful.

My personal solution? I only order coffee, in my own cup and I add my own cream and sugar. I am responsible for the time, and my cost is minimal. But what about you? Are you going to wait for Quality? And more importantly is that barista going to wait to produce it?

An Essential Tool of HR: COFFEE

HR folks are some of the hardest working (and underappreciated) people I know. Long hours, difficult decisions, difficult people, tons of paperwork (assuming you are a "transactionist") and a lot of reading (if you are studying for the PHR/SPHR/GPHR or are just being an "environmental scanner" or blog reader.) I know I start my day with a two cup commute at 6:30 in the a.m. and then usually supplement with a mid-morning jaunt out of the office to the Starbucks down the street. Sometimes when work or teaching requires a long into the evening night there will be a 5 p.m. stop as well.

I will admit, I am a caffine fiend, but I am at least not the 20 cups a day drinker I used to be. I will also admit that I am mostly a Starbucks drinker. My son, who worked for Starbucks for several years, even got me to grind my own beans. But I know this will bring scorn and derision down on me by many of you, but I like the coffee and the multiple locations that make it easy to get a cup of the Bold of the Day. And when you need an essential TOOL you need to be able to find it. I have even used some observations made in Starbucks as fodder for a blog post or two. And of course Starbucks as been written about several times for its management lessons. Here is Howard Schultz's book Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time if you are interested.

I have run across a blog written here in Atlanta that deals with coffee and things around it. Robb Sutton's Coffee Obsessed does a great job of reviewing coffees, coffee related products and coffee shops where he finds them. I appreciate the latter, in particular, because I am always happy to try out a new coffee shop. I even have occassional thoughts about opening up a shop. It was in reading Coffee Obsessed that I came across a post highlighting a coffee company called Rocket Fuel Coffee. Now that is a name to attract a caffeine fiend! I think I will check them out. I am heading to Greece in late May and I am looking forward to having coffee in the shops of Athens. Any recommendations?

So what is your coffee drink of choice that you find to be an essential tool? If not coffee do you get your caffeine a different way?

BTW, I do realize that beer and wine are also essential tools of HR, but not during working hours, unless  you work for a brewery or vineyard.

Ageism in the Workplace

As I was watching the reflection of my hair being cut the other day I thought out loud "Holy crap, look at all that gray hair." The woman cutting my hair consoled me with "At least that is better than loose." Not the greatest of consolation, but it got me to thinking. As many of you know, I had my birthday on July 7th, my 58th such day. Not a hallmark age by any means. But I guess it is better than not getting there.

Age is important to us, especially it seems in the US. And AGEISM exists everywhere. According to the WiseGeek, ageism is a term coined in 1969 by Robert Butler. Most of us think of it in terms of discrimination against older people, especially in the workplace. As The WiseGeek says "Many people use this term specifically to refer to discrimination against older people, but ageism can strike people of all ages." Teens can feel shut out of the workplace with "adultism", a preference for older workers, and older workers feel shut out by "jeunism", where workplaces prefer younger workers.

The legal protection in this country against discrimination based upon age is provided by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) enforcement of Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)of 1967. The law states that it is illegal to discriminate against anyone over the age of 40 in all aspects of employment, unless age is a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ). There is no protection for workers under the age of 40. However, the fact that this law exists does not stop the discrimination from occuring, as you might have guessed. The EEOC reports that in 2008 it "...received 24,582 charges of age discrimination. EEOC resolved 21,415 age discrimination charges in FY 2008 and recovered $82.8 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals (not including monetary benefits obtained through litigation)." This is almost 25% of the total number of discrimination claims of all types.

I witnessed an act of "ageism" personally the other day. I was not the target, but I was involved. I was at a local Starbucks (I name the company, but not the location, because hopefully someone in their HR department will read this and realize they have some further education to do. I am sure it is more widespread than this one spot) and I was ordering coffee and trying to pay with my coffee card. However, it needed more money put on it so I also gave the gentleman a credit card. I asked him to load money on my coffee card and to then pay for the drinks with my coffee card. Perhaps I was not clear, but he did not understand me. We went back and forth a couple of times and finally he had to ask for some help. Now the guy was probably about my age or within 5 years. But we were clearly not communicating. So a younger worker, who did pick up on what I wanted, helped him complete the transaction.

End of story? No, the next day I was sitting in the same store, with my under 30 adult daughter, and one of the baristas came over and apologized for "the confusion yesterday." In that apology she said "What can you expect, he is old." Now, being in HR and of similar age, I immediately bristled at this and gave her a mild rebuke. (I would have given her a lecture, but my daughter gave me a look that said "don't go there.")

All this leads to my musings on age. Age is important to us. It colors our perspective on everything. In the US we celebrate "youth" more than older age. Witness the statement "50 is the new 30", or whatever variation you use. I was reading an article as I was waiting to get my haircut about how women over 40 can avoid behaving old. (Text with your thumbs not your index fingers and never wear a watch, among other advice.) Magazines are knocking actresses who are not wearing "age appropriate" clothing. We curse at old people who are driving the car in front of us and we avoid going to Kroger on Wednesday. None of us are immune. I swear at AARP everytime I get their offers to join. At least there are signs that some aging is being accepted. December/May romances between older women and younger men is more acceptable and "Cougars" are being celebrated.

The important thing, however, from an HR perspective is that discrimination in the workplace on the base of age (albeit older age) is illegal and it will cost the company money. Workers need to be trained to be more aware of what they say, how they say and what they do. You need to focus on JOB PERFORMANCE. In my Starbucks example, if the "older" worker was let go due to his actual poor performance, the "innocent" statements of "what can you expect he is old" may cost the company alot of money. So be aware and train your employees.

And So It Begins: Starbucks Sued in Massachusetts

In my last blog about Starbucks being sued by baristas I said that we were going to see more of these lawsuits, given the $100 million settlement. We here it is, Starbucks Sued Again Over Tips. I predict we will see more and more of these suits.

Smell the Coffee: A Couple of HR Observations

Must have been a tough day today, perhaps due to a 3-day weekend for some, because at least two blogs had a coffee theme. (Ah coffee.. that aromatic nectar of wakefulness).

Kris Dunn, The HR Capitalist, weighed in on the Starbucks story about a court decision requiring Starbucks to pay baristas $100 million in back tips and penalities, for letting shift supevisors share in the tips customers put in the tip jar. Apparently that is a very big "no-no" in California (and now will embolden other employees in other states to bring the same lawsuit.) Starbucks has announced they will appeal the judges "excessive" judgement. However, I am sure we will see some fundamental changes in the way compensation is handled around Starbucks, win or lose. Personally, I never used the tip jar often, unless I got exceptional service, and I mean exceptional. One could argue that employees want tips then they should be willing to take a tipped wage of $2.13 an hour as well. I doubt many would be willing to make that trade.

The other blog with a coffee theme was that of Slacker Manager, Phil Gerbyshak. Phil gives a Monday Morning Management tip, which is: "Instead of having coffee alone, every day this week take a member of your team to coffee with you and find out a little more about how each associate on your team feels things are going. Start with the most junior member and work your way to the most senior." Great idea! In fact, if there is a Starbucks nearby, walk them over and spend sometime getting to know them.

This method is also good for getting to fellow executives and a great way to expand your "network" within the company. If you don't want to ask them out, then bring coffee to them. The point is that making allies and friends within the organization is VERY important to an HR professional and that can be done most effectively by taking a little bit of social time. It does not always have to be business. You are in the business of dealing with humans so put that social skill to work. (And by the way, Starbucks does serve other things than coffee and you will not be automatically be labled a snob. Unless of course you order a venti, no-whip, three shot, double-dipped, pat your head three times latte. Personally, I drink the coffee.)