Report on Workforce Recruitment at Starbucks: Strategies for Success

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Starbucks' workforce recruitment strategies. It begins with an executive summary and an introduction, highlighting the importance of employees in organizational success. The report identifies key challenges Starbucks faces, such as attracting and retaining talented personnel in a competitive market, and the need for a positive workplace culture. It then outlines various strategies for addressing these challenges, including rewarding and recognizing employees, providing comprehensive training programs, offering competitive compensation and welfare packages, and building a strong top management team. The report emphasizes the importance of workforce diversity, transparent selection processes, and delegation principles to motivate staff. The conclusion reinforces the significance of these strategies for Starbucks to maintain its competitive advantage and foster employee satisfaction, ultimately contributing to the company's global success. The report draws upon various academic sources to support its arguments and recommendations.

Running Head: RECRUITMENT OF THE WORKFORCE AT STARBUCKS 1
Recruitment of the Workforce at Starbucks
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Executive summary
The success of organizations is solely driven by the employees and hence the recruitment
of workers should be much emphasized to acquire the most qualified employees. Much weight
should be taken by the workforce diversity as this when managed effectively leads an
organization to have a competitive advantage over its competitors. Several strategies are
recommendable to the Starbucks organization so that it can be able to select well, recruit,
develop and retain employees who have quality skills. Active recruitment is not only made by
employing diverse workers, but also there must be appreciating, respecting and responding to the
needs and beliefs of various people and emphasizing provision of a positive work environment.
By this way, it helps in accumulating a huge pool of applicants who have got high qualities for
the recruitment and hence beneficial to the organization.
Introduction
According to the Dutton, & Kleiner, (2015), for any team to be successful in the current
competitive environment, its employees play a significant role and hence vital. More often than
not, the employees in an organization can be very instrumental in breaking or making the
company. In other words, if the employees of the organization portray a positive interaction with
customers, the customer will come back. However, the negative interaction between the
organization’s employees and its clients, this results in losing such customers and hence
contributing to the fall of the company (Farbenblum & Nolan, 2017).
This paper aims to look at the key challenges that Starbucks as an organization face
during hiring and recruiting the right person, training the employees well, motivating and
retaining the most qualified and talented employees. Starbucks refers to a specialty coffee house

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known to have originated in Seattle (Gopalakrishna, Victor, & Fleischmann, 2016). Currently,
the organization has more than 15000 outlets all over the world. It is involved in the selling of a
wide range of hot and cold drinks, food items together with other accessories. The organization
is based on a philosophy of creating an experience for all its customers and human connection.
Key challenges for recruiting the workforce at Starbucks
Some of the problems experienced by many organizations during recruitment process
include an increasingly demanding and a competitive talent market where many companies are
competing for the same qualified candidates. The organizations which employ old hiring
methods indulge themselves into the risk of losing the opportunity of converting great candidates
and also the failure of attracting qualified applicants right at the start of the recruitment process.
Like any other organization, as evidenced by Haskova (2015), Starbucks is faced with a
fundamental challenge of attracting and retaining the most talented personnel. Another problem
encountered by the organizations is the adoption of the workplace culture that significantly
contributes to the success of the company.
Strategies for addressing the recruitment challenges at Starbucks
For it to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors such as the Macc coffee,
Starbucks has adopted various strategies that are very helpful in addressing the challenges faced
by other organizations in attracting, developing and retaining the very qualified employees
(Headworth, 2015). Starbucks has also gained its uniqueness through the adoption of the
workforce diversity. The efficient management of the labor force diversity at Starbucks has come
as a result of employing diverse workers and being able to appreciate, respect and responding to
the arising needs, values and beliefs of the diverse employees and at the same time providing a

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positive work environment. Some of the key strategies that recommendable to be employed at
Starbucks to be able to recruit, develop and retain the quality employees involve the following;
 Rewarding and recognizing employees for their superior work performance
Starbucks is engaged in rewarding the employees who perform exceptionally. For the
organization to deliver this strategy actually, Starbucks should offer various opportunities to its
partners to grow through different ways. The different ways should aim at developing at the
individual level for the person’s career and also in their society as a whole. For instance, in Asia
and even all over the world, Starbucks hosts a regional Barista championship in which all the
companies barista from the entire Asia compete demonstrating their various skills, talents, and
passion for coffee. In such occasions, the winners get rewarded with an experience that changes
their life. As indicated by Jianfei, (2014), the method should be expanded to pay the workers
who are exceptional at their workplace, and this could be a strong motive to all the employees in
aiming at producing quality products. Training of the employees
Training of the employees in any organization is very inevitable for the organizational
development and success. Proper training of the employees boosts the efficiency and the
productivity of the workers. The four training basics that should be adopted at the Starbucks
should include; training the new job applicants. Primarily, this kind of training teaches the
candidates the basic organizational knowledge which involves goals, rules, vision, mission, and
regulations of the company among other information (Lewis, Thomas, & James, 2015).
Another basic training will include the teaching of the already existing employees of the
enterprise to gather knowledge that is useful in delivering quality services aimed at producing
quality products and improving customer relations. The third kind of training that Starbucks

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needs to adopt will include teaching the employees on any of the emerging technology in the
industry. Technology keeps on changing, and therefore such training is very crucial to enable the
employees to handle the future changes of the technology(Farbenblum, & Nolan, 2017). The
fourth training Starbucks should introduce to offer training to the employees who get promoted
within the company. Training an employee who has been promoted will enable such a worker in
gaining knowledge and experience in the new area of work. For example, Starbucks has to
subject every partner or the hired barista aimed to work for a retail job to an intensive training
before allowed to undertake such a job. The training should involve coffee history and customer
service to increase the client relations. There should training on how to satisfy all the individual
customer requirements to improve the customer retention. Compensation and welfare of the workers
As encouraged by the Howard Schultz, Starbucks should introduce various types of
monitory and other non- monitory benefit plans that are aimed at motivating the employees to
dedicate their services entirely to the organization. The program should be made to cover both
the part-time and full-time staff to motivate all the employees by enjoying the benefit. There
should include an introduction of flexibility, work-life balance and health insurance to the
workers which helps them feel comfortable at their workplace. The action also is seen to be the
most attracting factor that many people seem to be interested in an organization with such
benefits.
There are other welfare activities to the employees such as introducing a program of CUP
FUND, a plan that enables the employees to contribute money that can support various
employees in times of financial crisis. To be able to motivate the employees, Starbucks should
design such incentives to benefit both the employees and the organization itself as this helps in

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attracting qualified candidates to be recruited in the company. It also helps the company to retain
the most competent, high-performing workers and an increase in the employee satisfaction rate.
Organizations should be able to note that, once you treat the employees in a right way, they
should also reciprocate the same to the organization’s clients. Building a top management team
More often than not, the ever-developing companies will always need to have an active
management team. The efficient team usually helps in serving for both in the recruitment of the
employees and training of the workers to develop a healthy workforce. Many organizations
typically believe on one leader(Mouriño-Ruiz, 2017). However, a strategically built management
team proves to be an efficient way in delegating leadership to deliver expert services to the
organization during the recruitment and development of the best workforce. Starbucks should
continue adopting this strategy since it helps in distributing the responsibilities in an organization
by skill levels.
In all cases, already having experienced employees at the Starbucks will continue to
attract and acquire new job applicants with qualifications. The qualified management team
should always be distributed to all the departments of the organization to bring uniformity for the
development of the organization. For instance, Starbucks need to deploy additional executives to
all the departments including marketing, store supervision, human resources, information system
and also the finance(Morais, et al 2014). Specifically, adding qualified people in all these
departments leads to adopting training of the new employees in the organization and hence
helping in the recruitment and development of a stronger workforce in the organization.
Recommendations

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Many small companies typically develop to become larger and famous worldwide, and
they apply various efficient strategies that enable them to fetch such success. Starbucks is seen to
be growing enormously within the international markets. The company is becoming an
international because of how it has contributed to the making difference to the people all over the
world. It is essential if the enterprise wishes to thrive more than its competitors such as the
MacDonald’s, to continue applying the philosophy from Howard Schultz that, “if you treat the
employees as a family, then they will be willing to give their all.” The factors that should be
given much weight to contribute to the company’s success are the one regarding the recruitment
of the new employees.
In an attempt to carry out a successful recruitment of new employees that guarantees
acquisition of qualified staff, Starbucks should employ a selection and retention criteria for the
employees that concur with the strategic objectives of the organization. In this case, care should
put into consideration in adopting the suitable recruitment and the selection strategies for them to
be able to attract the best and potential candidates who are fit for the job. Such process will also
ensure there is a total retention of the employees since all of them will be possessing qualities
that are worthy emulated by young employees in the company (Morais, et al 2014).
The selection process should also be very transparent. It is a process in which managers
and other particular staff in an organization apply in choosing from a pool of applicants, the
potential candidates that can contribute to achieving the goals of the organization. Using the
various selecting methods such as interviewing, Assessment Centre, and psychological
assessment are highly recommended as they will help Starbucks in acquiring candidates who fit
for the job (Mouriño-Ruiz, 2017).

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Conclusion
In conclusion, it is essential to note the way Starbucks applies delegation principles as a
way of trying to motivate its staff. According to Snell, (2017), Starbucks should encourage
teamwork and also develop more programs that aim at training both the existing and new
employees. Training always equips the workers with the relevant skills required to perform the
job. Such motive also encourages the employee to have job satisfaction, and staff may, therefore,
be willing to help those job applicants who are highly qualified to apply for the job. In this way,
the organization will have a huge pool of candidates with relevant qualifications for recruitment.

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Haskova, K. (2015). Starbucks Marketing Analysis. CRIS-Bulletin of the Centre for Research
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Lewis, A., Thomas, B., & James, S. (2015). A critical analysis of the implementation of social
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Mouriño-Ruiz, E. (2017). The Perfect Human Capital Storm: Workplace Human Capital
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(2017). Starbucks: Schultz Back in the Brew. Darden Business Publishing Cases, 1-18.