Analysis of Starbucks' HR Goals Alignment with Strategic Objectives

This report examines the alignment of Starbucks' Human Resource goals with its overall organizational strategy. It explores how Starbucks' HR department, encompassing recruitment, training, and employee relations, supports the company's vision and mission. The report highlights the importance Starbucks places on its HR department, particularly in retaining employees and fostering a high-performance culture. The analysis emphasizes the role of HR in achieving a competitive advantage, focusing on the alignment of HR practices with strategic objectives, such as the company's expansion plans. The report further discusses the use of a systems perspective in aligning HR goals and organizational strategy, including the development of a System Alignment Map to visualize and improve alignment. The report highlights the importance of quality service and employee interactions with customers as a key HR achievement consistent with the company's goal of providing the best service.

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Starbucks Alignment of HR Goals with Strategic Goals
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In measuring the alignment of Starbucks Human Resource goals, with organization strategy, it is
important to examine the company’s HR goals in order to ascertain the extent to which they
cover the scope of the company’s strategic goals, vision and mission. With its multinational
presence, Starbucks HR function involves recruitment and selection, safety and health of the
workers, training and development, as well as labor relationships (Jack J. Phillips, 2016).
Additionally, Starbucks is focused on outsourcing of its functions in overseas in line with the
company’s strategic expansion plan. The Human resource department has been very effective in
aligning the HR goals with organizational strategy as reflected on the recently reported
company’s lowest turnover rate. The company’s HR strategy of retaining employees has placed
the HR department on a high pedestal in terms of decision making as reflected on the high
quality performance of the company.
Starbucks values the HR department because according to its owner Howard Schultz, the human
resource department is the most important asset of the organization (Director, Cascio, &
Boudreau, 2013). In that regard, the human resource department has over time been managed in
a manner that reflects the organizational goals in order to have a competitive advantage over its
competitors. To enhance a positive outcome, the company has put emphasis of recruitment in
order to generate a pool of qualified, ethical and persons with integrity in delivering the services
to the lovers of coffee and other beverages that Starbucks provides on retail. For instance,
Starbucks has set up a certain criteria of selection such that the persons selected as employees
must fit the legal requirements and management goals. Moreover, it is a requirement that the
selected individuals must be successful on their job in order to drive the company’s shared
objectives and goals to the next level (Niven & Lamorte, 2016). Such people must be committed

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to delivery of excellent t services and those who pay attention to fine details and customer’s
needs.
HR management in any organization is valued as a partner to driving the organizational strategy
in delivering strategic changes. For instance, Starbucks has a very low retention rate of
employees because they offer training opportunities for employee development. Once employees
are trained, the company’s retention rate decreases as they can work across other network of
franchises. The fact that Starbucks employees are employable across the range of franchises
raises the company’s reputation and its value changes. The aspect of delivering the best service
in terms of quality coffee cup as well as the ability to interact with customers is one of the major
HR achievements in driving change which is highly consistent and aligned to the company’s goal
of being providing the best service and demystifying the beverage service.
The use of systems perspective in aligning HR goals and organizational strategy is very essential
because it helps in figuring out how to change the system in order to improve the alignment. A
lot of interrelationships are created within the HR system and between the firm’s strategy and
HR system (Becker, Huselid, & Ulrich, 2001). Use of systems view in aligning HR goals and
firm’s strategy is better done through development of System Alignment Map which has the
following benefits
 It helps in visualizing the alignment to see exactly where changes are needed and
necessary
 It incorporates perspectives from the whole organization by assigning assignments to
specific employee groups

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 It is based on the best scientific principles of measurement and is easy to administer.
References
Becker, B. E., Huselid, M. A., & Ulrich, D. (2001). The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy,
and Performance. Brighton, Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Director, S., Cascio, W., & Boudreau, J. (2013). Key Tools for Human Resource Management
(Collection). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: FT Press.
Jack J. Phillips, P. P. (2016). Accountability in Human Resource Management: Connecting HR
to Business Results. London: Routledge.
Niven, P. R., & Lamorte, B. (2016). Objectives and Key Results: Driving Focus, Alignment, and
Engagement with OKRs. Hobboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons,.