Fantastic Company, Tedious Fast Food & Bev Job
Pros
Starbucks is the very best FAST FOOD/ BEV company to work for. (No, Starbucks is not retail, no matter how many job postings have that label.) Some of the reasons I say this: -Fantastic Benefits: Medical, Dental, Life Accidental Death/ Dismemberment, Bereavement, PTO, Vacation, 401K, Stock, and more- most of them available to ALL employees, even part-time -Employee Discounts: 30% off at SBUX and SBUX owned stores, free pound of coffee every week, free drinks on shift. -The scheduling is the most flexible I have seen since I waited tables part time at Olive Garden during college. -The Company is extremely ethical- they don't really brag about it, although I think it's a HUGE disservice to Starbucks to not make it more known. They care about the environment, all of the employees down to the farmers who grow the ethically sourced coffee, encourage employees to volunteer. Good Stuff.
Cons
Being so flexible and caring has it's downsides. Many of the people in Leadership roles do not know how to manage people. Starbucks is 100% reactive, rather than proactive with promoting. When a position opens up for a Shift Supervisor, whatever Barista has been there the longest and does their Barista job well is promoted. The problem with this is the Leadership and People Management aspect is completely overlooked, when it really is more important than being the fastest on the bar or the best multi-tasker. This leaves a really slim pool when ASM and Store Manager positions open up, when it should be creating a huge pool of future managers. I saw several people in Leadership roles, from Shifts Supervisor up to Store Manager, have relationships with their subordinates, completely failing to maintain a professional distance. While being "partners" sounds great on paper, there needs to be a respect for the chain of command and coaching conversations should be happening regularly, shouldn't be more than a minute or two inmost cases, and should be consistent, not just with the partners you aren't buddies with. I witnessed my District manager berate employees in front of customers and other partners over minor discretions, without offering any solutions or further training. It seems like most of the Managers either don't coach their employees or yell and boss- both poor approaches to managing people. The work is HARD and the pay is not proportionate. There is little time to accomplish things that I feel are important when mentoring your people, like monthly touch-bases, regular performance reviews, touching up or moving around visual merchandising, the "values walk," etc. I felt drained and frustrated at the end of most days, regardless of which of the 3 stores I worked at and this seemed to be commonplace at all levels in "retail"- I have never seen so many people crying in the back at their job before and I was only there for 4 months.
