Managing People Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Managing People - Essay Example If the geographical scope, financial strength, and wide customer base fail to persuade someone about the prominence of Starbucks as an icon of the corporate world, one can come up with a long list of laurels and awards that the company holds under its name, highlighting its success and reputation (Clark, 2007, p. 427; Michelli, 2006, p. 387). Zagat’s Survey of National Chain Restaurants for the year 2010 identified Starbucks as â€Å"No. 1 Best Coffee† and â€Å"No.1 Most Popular Quick Refreshment Chain†. For the past decade, it has appeared on the Fortune’s list of â€Å"Most Admired companies in America† and â€Å"The 100 Best Companies to Work for† (Mangold, 2010, p. 82). Quite understandably, a significant portion of this impeccable success enjoyed by Starbucks comes from its ability to manage, effectively and efficiently, its human resource. As a service oriented business, employees determine the customer service quality of the company, represent the company and their productivity determines the overall productivity of the organisation (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2007, p. 97). This paper is an attempt to discuss the leadership, organisational culture, organisational structure, organisational learning and employee motivation techniques employed by Starbucks. The paper argues that the prime leadership for Starbucks comes from Howard Schultz, for most parts, has appeared as a transformational leader. In fact, fitting the profile of a transformational leader, has allowed Schultz to inspire and create many more leaders in the company who have assisted in driving the growth by providing a wonderful customer service experience (Behar, 2007, p. 489). The culture of the company can be classified as collaborative work culture, one where much importance is placed on employee empowerment, employee engagement and worker welfare. More importantly, it is the decentralised, flat and matrix structure is the prime entity, which supports s uch as a work culture through promoting open and efficient communication amongst employees (Gilbert, 2008, p. 111). Moreover, the employee motivation at Starbucks can be understood through the application of Expectancy theory and Equity theory of Motivation. Besides, the above mentioned points, the paper will also outline a change management processes for the company and would provide recommendations based on the findings and analysis. Findings and Analysis Leadership There is evidence to believe that, Howard Schultz has been a transformational leader for Starbucks. The prime reason for it is rooted in the fact that Schultz, right from the very beginning had a vision in mind. It was in the early 1980s Howard Schultz, the current CEO, Chairman and President of the company, joined Starbucks as head of marketing. Schultz, after a trip from Italy, realised that to those people, coffee meant much more than just a drink. It was an experience, glue holding together people and their convers ations and bringing them closer (Schultz & Yang, 1999, p. 27). Schultz landed upon the idea of creating coffee houses where coffee becomes an enchanting and relaxing experience rather than a mere product. Jerry Baldwin had left the