Image source: http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/29/news/companies/starbucks-barista-tips/
This article explains how Starbucks has just released a policy which prohibit barista to wear engagement ring during working hours. The policy was released based on food safety policy ; wearing hand attributes such as watch or rings could affect the quality and the safety of food and beverages.
Starbucks is well known for its excellent product quality and customer service; they promise to remake the drink when the drink is not satisfying its customer;
Starbucks tells customers: “Your drink should be perfect, every time. If not, let us know and we‘ll make it right.”
We should also be aware that barista play a very crucial role in maintaining Starbucks success. Baristas are the heart and soul of a Starbucks. Barista affect and, even to an extent, control the quality of production, customer service, innovation and the many other facets affecting business success.
Even though the rules has just been released, theres been a lot of ongoing public opinion disagreeing on this policy. In twitter we can see #boycottstarbucks as one of trending topic of the day, tweets from Baristas and barista’s family concerning this issue.
Starbucks’ purpose of releasing this issues is understandable; as one of the leading coffee shop in the world, Starbucks always want to improve customer satisfaction and maintain the quality of the coffee itself . However,when it comes to ‘controlling’ personal preferences of its employee, we could see that this approach could also bring several disadvantage for the business both in short and long term.
However from this policy, Starbucks is dealing with the freedom and personal preferences of its employee. This might affect the perception of how Starbucks treats their the employee. In short term, this policy will affect the organizational behaviour , worker motivation which certainly will have impact on the quality of service and product to the customer. All in all, I recommend Starbucks to reevaluate the policy and reconsider how this policy could affect the customer perception and purchasing power.
