Work Stress and its Management in Starbucks - A Case Study

This presentation discusses work stress and its management in Starbucks, a coffee company and coffeehouse chain that employs approximately 238,000 employees. It covers the prevalence of high work-related stress among employees, the Person-Environment Fit Theory, Conservation of Resources Theory, and Transactional Model of Stress. It also explores how Starbucks manages work stress among its employees through different techniques such as yoga, meditation, and training programs. The presentation concludes with the implications of these theories in Starbucks and how they improve employee performance and productivity.

Starbucks:
Work Stress
and its
Management
Name of the Group Member:

Key Learning Issues
• To understand the concept of work stress and its
management
• Work stress and its management in Starbucks
• Application of the theory related to work stress and
its management in Starbucks

Case Overview
• Starbucks is operating its business operations in
entire Australia
• Founded in the year 1971.
• Deals in providing coffee and other beverages to
the customers and considered as coffee company
and coffeehouse chain
• Employs approximately 2,38,000 employees

Continued. . .
• Inevitable condition where the harm has been done
to the employees in terms of physical and emotional
in case when the requirements of the job do not
match with the needs and capabilities of the
worker.

Continued. . .
• The youth in the country is severely suffering from
work stress of the age group 18 to 35 years.
• There is a prevalence of high work related stress
among people that have increased level of income
• Starbucks has adopted different measures to reduce
the stress level among the employees and improves
their productivity.

Relevant points related to the
case
• High level of stress level among the employees of
the age group 18-35 years
• Stress while providing customer centric services
• Adoption of different techniques to reduce stress
level such as organization of sessions and
workshops related to yoga, meditation and other
ways.

Person-Environment Fit Theory
• Extent to which there is an matching of the
characteristics of environment and person.
• Focuses on three domains
– Person - job fit
– Person - group fit
– Person - person fit

Continued. . .
• Can be done by providing training to employees
• Provision of rewards and recognition to improve the
performance of the employees
• Carrying out different activities to increase the
interaction among the employees which also helps
in reducing stress among them.

Continued. . .
• Starbucks in order to achieve fit between the
person and the work environment
– Organizes different workshops and sessions related to
nutrition, health, yoga and meditation
– Organizes different training programs to enhance the
skills of the employees
– Organizes different visits at group and individual level

Conservation of resources (COR)
Theory
• COR is one of the leading stress management
theories
• Introduced by Dr. Hobfoll, in 1989
• Helps in determining the causes of stress in
employees (Wendling et al., 2018)
• Helps the organizations to deal with employees’
anxiety and stress

Implication of Conservation of
Resources theory in Starbucks
• Identifying the factors developing stress in the
employees
• Persuading individuals to be confident and
optimistic (Hobfoll et al., 2018)
• Promoting healthy work culture

Continued. . .
• Employee engagement
• Effective communication
• Providing job autonomy
• Regular meetings to develop a sense of belonging in
individuals (Kong, and Ho, 2018)

Transactional model of stress
• It is essential to identify the events and factors that
are generating stress in the employees.
• Transactional model conceptualizes the stress as an
outcome of how the stressor is valued and how an
individual evaluates his resources to manage with
the stressor.

Continued. . .
• Stress of the individuals can be reduced by
changing their perception about the stressors and
helping them to manage the situation and improve
their level of confidence.
• Stress of the individuals can be reduced by
changing their perception about the stressors and
helping them to manage the situation and improve
their level of confidence.

Implication of Transactional
model in Starbucks
• The transactional model is applied by the managers of
Starbucks to deal with the employee stress at the
workplace.
• There is lack of cooperation between the employees to
accomplish specific project, which is influencing to their
working performance in negative manner.
• The employees are not looking their ob safety in future.
• The management is making efforts to develop a cooperative
working environment to enable the employees to provide
customer centric services.

Business Sense and Business
Application
• It is found out that there is an effective
implementation of different theories related to work
stress in the organization in an effective manner to
improve the overall performance and productivity of
the organization.
• The organizations can stay in the market with the
competitive with implication of appropriate stress
management model.

References
• Hobfoll, S.E., Halbesleben, J., Neveu, J.P. and Westman,
M. (2018) Conservation of resources in the organizational
context: The reality of resources and their
consequences, Annual Review of Organizational
Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5(1), pp.103-
128.
• Kong, D.T. and Ho, V.T. (2018) The performance
implication of obsessive work passion: unpacking the
moderating and mediating mechanisms from a
conservation of resources perspective, European Journal
of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27(2), pp.269-
279.
• Pee, L.G. and Min, J. (2017) Employees’ online knowledge
sharing: The effects of person-environment fit. Journal of
Knowledge Management, 21(2), pp.432-453.
• Heber, E., Ebert, D. D., Lehr, D., Nobis, S., Berking, M.,
and Riper, H. (2013) Efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a
web-based and mobile stress-management intervention
for employees: design of a randomized controlled
trial, BMC Public Health, 13(1), pp. 655-657.