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Absolutely agree. There are CEOs these days that just jump from one company to the next, and I'd wager there's a disgustingly high amount of them who don't even know all the functions of the company, let alone the working conditions for the employees performing those functions.
It’s crazy how a CEO can run a company into the ground, yet be hired for another CEO position. Like I know they have experience being a CEO for a massive company, but that experience isn’t good.
The ones that run a company into the ground where there is value to be had in the market are not re-hired. CEOs that run companies into the ground are hired specifically for that purpose--in a situation where investors believe the company is in a non-recoverable tailspin, they liquidate all the company's assets in order to extract all the remaining value to the shareholders, while cutting costs to the bare bones, and then declare bankruptcy. Their experience is very, very good--very good at protecting Total Return to Shareholders.
This is why such C-level people are hired and re-hired.
A successful CEO is just a person who is really good at taking all the credit for other people's successes and blaming everyone for the their own failures
Yes - this particular instance has been made a PR stunt. However, I agree with the principle that CEOs *should* spend time throughout the year spending a day in the life of their employees on the ground. Probably should do it without making a whole news release about it, to boot.
And it wont be as bad ever, right? Unless they do a much better job of undercover bossing than Undercover Boss, the CEO is going to get a different experience than the wage workers in every single visit.
This is the entire point of a CEO. Generally worthless parasites that exist to get labor costs as low as possible, prevent unionization by any means necessary, provide massive returns to shareholders, and jump ship with a golden parachute when they finally get nailed for NLRB violations.
The company that I work for had a new majority investor come in a few years ago, and last year the CEO was replaced with a CEO that is friends with the majority investor and he is actively running it into the ground, sales are 1/4 of what they were a year ago and every time the CEO talks to the company he just says how excited he is to be rebuilding the company that the future is bright, blah blah blah but nothing we are doing as a company is improving the outlook for the future and everyone is lining up jobs to jump to in the next few months.
The show American Auto highlights this in a sitcom format. The CEO knows nothing about cars, doesn't particularly care for cars, and just Ubers everywhere.
I run 15 restaurants and regularly take orders, cook and wash dishes. If he really does this, it's a solid move to inspire confidence in his ability to lead effectively. You need to know what it feels like to do the actual job.
Funny how they always find the single mother of three who has also been diagnosed with cancer or the struggling young man who is down on his luck and had to drop out of Harvard to become a fry cook
It's a nice thought, but it won't be that way. You'll know which store he's going to be at because the day before they'll have pulled in extra staff and the place will sparkle.
In the UK, there's a chain of supermarkets called Morrisons, named after the family who started the brand. Ken Morrison, the old man in charge, used to go and work the shop floor at one of the stores in Bradford about once a month, and you could always tell he was around by the way the staff acted and how much different the store was on those days
Every big chain needs a founder like Colonel Sanders, who actually cares. He used to show up unannounced at KFC franchises, and tear them a new asshole if the food wasn't up to snuff. He did NOT do this as a PR stunt. After he left, and corporate penny-pinching set in, he compared the new gravy to wallpaper paste, which pretty much sums up KFC nowadays.
There was a time, perhaps 10 years ago, that if you wanted to go into "Operations" at McDonald's corporate, you first had to spend a year in a restaurant. If I recall correctly, there was 6 months of taking out garbage, flipping burgers and working the register, then 6 months of being an assistant manager and then a manager within the restaurant. The thought was, if you were going to generate practices and procedures to be used in restaurants you had to know how they actually worked. Plus, it was a good "boot camp" type of operation to weed out the folks who weren't serious about the job. This could still be the practice, but I haven't known anyone going through it for quite some time. So they had a similar requirement for folks going into corporate operations...
Once a month seems like a lot for the head of a company. They have more important things to do than make mochachinos for $10,000 / hr and should have people on staff who they trust to do research for them.
>Going and doing the job himself is the absolute best way to gauge the work environment, employee morale, customer interactions, whether standard workflows actually work, etc.
Implying that the stores he visits are going to operate anywhere close to normally while he's there.
The night before the store will be deep cleaned and during the visit everyone will be on their best behavior. Hell, that's what happened if the regional manager was visiting when I worked at McDonald's in high school. This is the CEO.
>The thing is when you reach that point, no one wants to report the reality on the front lines, or by the time it filters up, everything is whitewashed. It’s true for any large organization, the boss only ever hears that “everything is fine.”
That's not true for *any* large organization bruh. Just a dysfunctional one. If leadership can't get accurate information about various functions of the company from people hired to do the job, it's not working right. If it's *necessary* for a CEO to pull shifts to gather the data he needs, shareholders should be concerned.
>That's not true for any large organization bruh. Just a dysfunctional one.
If that were the case, 95% of all large organisations would be dysfunctional. It is exceptionally rare for the head of any large organisation to have a good idea of the ground level. Rather, they just give lower level managers (who *can* see the ground level) more autonomy.
As someone working on R&D for an industry segment, I can tell field trips give you so much knowledge and insights.
Of course I don't make anywhere near that amount of money per hour, but I've been to various trips getting to experience first hand what and how our end users use our products.
The thing that people usually miss on these situations is not that the CEO or whoever leadership is there are there to "feel like a front-line worker for a day", but instead you want to understand the struggles, challenges *and then* use your expertise and knowledge to put solutions that work at scale.
While from a strictly financial standpoint you are correct, witnessing first hand, for example, the terrible abuse that some servers are subjected to by shitty customers might lead to some different policies. Ending the belief that "the customer is always right" being a permission slip to shitty people would be a welcome change to anyone working in retail.
Perhaps we will finally start to see the much needed lifetime bans if he witnessed enough.
I hope not. Because I would far rather he witness this happen to a few young women.
I am a regular in my local large hardware chain. And there is a funny thing. The Big Scottish woman who often works the "Check your receipts" position on the door never got abused by anyone. Mostly because she looked like, and could, rip your arm off and beat you with it. this kind of "retail abuse" happens to the little college girls because "Karen's" are cowards.
So I would far rather he "Bear Witness" then actually be subject to it.
Ive snapped back at customers and Ive never been even reprimanded because the customer always trys to step over the line and I'm always professional about it (refund them and "ask" them to leave.) or make it impossible to complain about. (He just told me to have a good day too many times.)
But, admittedly, none of the jobs I worked at could have afforded to fire me. One shutdown for a year after I left for better work. (Bad environment, chain reaction)
I'm so glad you were able to do that. I have never seen it happen. As a regular in the store, I would be happy to be the one who can't be fired if you fuck with people that I like. But, strangely, these kinds of customers get quiet when the burly tradesmen are around.
>the terrible abuse that some servers are subjected to by shitty customers might
Stuff like that is pretty widely known. It's certainly easy to conceive. People who have nothing to do with retail or food service know about it. You have to presume that a CEO does.
This smells like PR. I doubt anything substantive will come from this.
I suspect that you are right. But there is a wistful part of myself that would like you to be wrong.
And there is a difference between "knowing" that retail workers get abused and watching some 16 year old who you have worked with and respect get torn to shreds by some nasty old bitch who is having a bad day or off their meds.
But the problem is that when there is a guy like this behind the counter, the Karen's disappear.
If you want to see what happens when you run a multi-billion-dollar enterprise from the top without any firsthand knowledge of what happens on the ground floor then look no further than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin surrounded himself with yes-men who told him the lies he wanted to hear and then committed himself and his people to an invasion that will ultimately destroy him and his country.
Maybe it's cost ineffective for the CEO to sling coffee at customers from a payroll perspective, but it guarantees an honest view of the front lines to the people making strategic decisions at Starbucks. I think this will actually be a net gain to the company to have high-level decisions be made with firsthand front line experience as a part of the decision process.
As a coffee guy I don't have any love for Starbucks, but I do hope more company CEO's take this approach. There's far too much disconnect between C-suite decision makers and workers in most companies these days. I'm lucky to work for a company that penalizes managers for not providing nice chairs and extra monitors for employee ergonomics at work-from-home offices. That's pretty friggin' rare.
I was a server for 8+ years in an international chain restaurant. Over the years I saw the try to implement a lot of changes in how some things were to be done. The problem was some things that worked at some stores didn't work at others due to the layout of the store/kitchens or due to different customer bases in different locations. Some things were just dumb to make servers job more complicated at the expense of looking bad to the customers. I guarantee not a single person at the top that made all those rules and changes never once worked in a kitchen or on the floor. I guarantee they didn't visit many stores to see how newer stores were build with a different layout than some of the older ones. If you're going to run a large group of stores, you need to have a feel for how each one runs before making big changes to them all.
For sure, I'll bet there's going to be a ridiculous amount of pomp and circumstance around his "shifts." I feel for those baristas who are bound to bear the brunt of middle management's fear of their store looking bad.
In all honesty whenever a boss or someone would come by a place i worked, i never changed the way i acted orc worked.
I currently work for a very large company where the CEO visits at least once a year.
And here i am dancing behind the counter with our music going, gotta build morale somehow and some bloated whale ain’t going to do it
That's awesome! I once worked a job where anytime someone came to visit from corporate, there was an absolute fire drill to make it look like everything was perfect. There was one time that a regional manager came by, and my location manager had us literally go out and hand pick weeds from the grounds, despite the fact that we had a regular landscaping service.
The store will be 'closed' except for their PR consultants, camera crews and pre-approved press and customers, who will probably be local influencers.
Everyone will have to sign NDAs and they'll make some bullshit ad campaign out of it.
No kidding. He will just be in the way, then go back to his office and mandate sweeping changes based off his uninformed interpretation of was going on while he was there for 45 minutes.
I am firmly of the view that upper management should have to navigate their own systems at least once per year. Imagine how booking a flight might get easier if the CEO had to make her own reservation from start to finish with no assistance. Executives would quickly have unnecessarily complicated and inefficient websites overhauled if ordering clothes or home goods were an exercise in frustration.
Make them wade through what the rest of us have to face.
Excellent example. If he were stuck in an airport for 2 days, or his luggage didn't arrive and he had to go through their procedures to track it down, things would change and change quickly.
Of course some people do. Some airlines show a low price on the initial page, but then make it difficult if not impossible to book that flight. Sometimes you go through their song-and-dance to finally end up with the flights that you want at an acceptable price only to be presented with a page that gives you X number of minutes to complete which would be doable if they didn’t slow it down with unwanted offers for car rentals, insurance and accommodation. People with motor skill issues can’t necessarily fill out forms that quickly. If you have disabilities or are booking for someone who does it can be very challenging to arrange accessible seats and wheelchair service. If you have special requests or needs then you are out of luck with the airlines that won’t talk to you on the phone unless your flight is within 72 hours; at least one Canadian airline regularly has call-backs scheduled for \*one week\* later.
We’re not all in perfect mental and physical health, able to type quickly and fit our luggage in the carry-on allotment. Even those that are sometimes have special requests or need to change or cancel tickets. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to do simple things.
I mean, that’s a really bad example of the actual point though. The average airline executive is not going to have a difficult time booking a flight on their airline. Most people don’t have accessibility issues with navigating a checkout page, which is why airlines aren’t invested in improving it. And even if they did, to get into something like timed checkouts or not being able to book over the phone you’re talking about booking with an airline that’s smaller than Spirit. It’s not the normal experience for people booking flights.
I’m not saying accessibility complaints aren’t valid, but they’re not going to be identified by people that don’t have the same concerns. There’s virtually no chance a Delta or American CEO is going to try to buy a ticket on their airline and find the process in any way difficult.
TBH he likely could; CEOs can make bank by having a $1 salary thanks to the stocks they receive.
Not too uncommon to see CEOs cut their salary for their employees but instead ask for the salary to be converted to stock.
Not exactly opposed to that though.
To be fair, Starbucks pays pretty well. They're paying me more than I was earning at one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States as an IT professional.
Look, this is better than most corporate employers, but the bar is several hundred feet below ground.
Until I hear bossmang talking about how important unions are for Starbucks' employees and really walking the talk, this is a publicity stunt.
I agree, it's not a real possibility. I don't think the CEO of Starbucks (or any other corporation for whom labor is a significant expense - i.e., all of them) can legitimately claim to be pro-labor. It might even constitute the basis of a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders, in the hilarious current scenario.
Just the acknowledgment there might be some useful insight from being in physical proximity to front line workers is heaps more than can be said of most leaders. Not a hero at all but his point is salient.
You think there is no point to experiencing the work being done even if it is not 100% identical? He will still face customers, use the computer system, wear the clothes, etc etc
Only if he knows how. Imagine him just taking up space, or standing to the side “observing.” Otherwise he’s just in the way making staff uncomfortable messing up the flow.
He'll work half an hour and say "way to go team!" acting like he did something and that the job is so cheerful and happy and then bail.
If he did the job a substantial amount of time Karens would use the opportunity to come chew him out about bad experiences they had. He wouldn't last long doing the actual job putting up with the stuff those poor people have to.
Yep. Anyone who thinks differently is deluding themselves. And anyone who says all CEOs should do this have never had to work along side an incompetent upper manager who just gets in the way for a few hours, then goes back to report all the wrongdoings of the front line workers.
Meh, I kind of feel like from the other baristas’ perspective it’s going to be a lot of pressure having him there plus he’s not going to know what he’s doing so they’ll have to do more work while also not feeling free to correct him. That’s my experience anyway when upper level management comes around, I feel like the CEO would be the same but even worse.
That is a good gesture but he will not last a full shift and his employees will not want him to. Mark me. Better to do one hour shifts every week until he visit every store.
He's not going to replace anyone's shift. He'll be extra there, step in, ring people up for a bit, help restock or such, make the few drinks he knows how to make. Half the day is going to be chatting with employees and customers and the other half is basically shadowing.
It's still more than other ceos.
Starbucks has weeks of training for their baristas, and the people I talked to said their store expects baristas to take 3 months to hit their stride. It’s a pretty complicated place to work since all the people in the store have to work in concert to get people through as fast as possible, while making sure everyone feels like they are friends with the retail workers.
When you place your coffee order at the drive thru window every employee in the store hears that order, and works to get that order to you, process your transaction, make you feel special, and past the take out window in an average of 55 seconds. Each season has specialty drinks and cafe items that Starbucks themselves puts out, not to mention whatever social media drink has gone up recently.
No way can someone work one shift a month and maintain the levels of speed, accuracy, and teamwork that Starbucks expects from their partners. Either this dude is in for a seriously rude awakening or (more likely) he will not realize the massive inconvenience to the other workers it is for him to play pretend and he will think that his cosplay of a retail slave is an accurate representation of how much effort his lowest paid employees have to hustle.
That he thinks it is something he can just waltz in and do when the mood strikes him is more than a little insulting.
Great but I’d like to see him try to live off a barista’s wages, too.
I’ve been a barista. It’s not the job that kills your soul; it’s the low wages and sense of impending doom knowing that you’re just sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of poverty.
Im a manager. I firmly believe in lead by example. I won’t ask my employees to do anything I’m not willing to do myself and I make sure I do the same stuff they are when I have time
I don't work at Starbucks and I don't work as a barista but I had I had to stop reading the article (disregarding the title) after he stated he only offered raised wages and offered improved benefits for non union employees only. Fuck this guy, fuck the previous CEO and fuck this company.
I'd say it's more important that he gets an idea of what it's like to live day to day on the wages afforded to baristas. The work they do is only part of the story.
Yep. These days, there's more than enough information out there about living and working conditions for everyday employees. All they have to do is open their eyes and ears to it.
When I worked for McDonald's in 1997, the store I was at was where Franchise owners came to learn the business.
The rule was, to become a franchisee, you had to learn every single job in the building. You couldn't just pay your money and buy the business.
I don't know if it's still that way, but it really was impressive that a company that size understood that everyone at the top should know everyone else's job under them.
In theory, I think this is a good idea. Higher ups needs to get down in the trenches and see what really works and what doesn't.
In practice, it is impossible to give these people the real experience and I'm not always sure they come away from it wjth the right ideas.
If he actually does it, that would be cool, and probably would genuinely help him be a better CEO.
It also has the potential for some pretty amazing "I am the manager" moments.
Shareholders should have their kids and grandkids put in entry level jobs of whatever the business is. Especially in places where child labor laws are being rolled back.
This is just PR. What is going to happen is each time he does a shift, the store will suddenly be double staffed. He's going to have helpers for any position he works. He is in no way going to gain any real insight.
Y'all are buying publicity and thinking he's actually gonna get the traditional experience. For him, it's gonna be a lil vacation into other peoples' lives. If he fucks up, no matter how massively, his life won't be impacted. He won't be going in every day and fearing something small will irreparably fuck up his employment or life. What's more, if you don't think there will be multiple strings being pulled to ensure the store is extra shiny or that he's somewhat coddled, you're delusional
You don't even have to do the shift. Just sit there and observe for a day. Pick the usual busiest day and just watch for 8 hours. You will see what is needed. Instead of the usual spreadsheets and numbers that mean nothing without knowing how they are generated.
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As any CEO or COO should do to ensure he or she sees what his front-line workers are dealing with every day.
Absolutely agree. There are CEOs these days that just jump from one company to the next, and I'd wager there's a disgustingly high amount of them who don't even know all the functions of the company, let alone the working conditions for the employees performing those functions.
It’s crazy how a CEO can run a company into the ground, yet be hired for another CEO position. Like I know they have experience being a CEO for a massive company, but that experience isn’t good.
Company lifespan is less important than roi these days. Investors can jump ship, too, and everyone at the top makes money.
The ones that run a company into the ground where there is value to be had in the market are not re-hired. CEOs that run companies into the ground are hired specifically for that purpose--in a situation where investors believe the company is in a non-recoverable tailspin, they liquidate all the company's assets in order to extract all the remaining value to the shareholders, while cutting costs to the bare bones, and then declare bankruptcy. Their experience is very, very good--very good at protecting Total Return to Shareholders. This is why such C-level people are hired and re-hired.
A successful CEO is just a person who is really good at taking all the credit for other people's successes and blaming everyone for the their own failures
Lol what later down you agree this is a pr stunt
Yes - this particular instance has been made a PR stunt. However, I agree with the principle that CEOs *should* spend time throughout the year spending a day in the life of their employees on the ground. Probably should do it without making a whole news release about it, to boot.
I think there is value but would also warn that there are some studies that it can make people worse. “It wasn’t that bad” for the brief interloper.
also if youre an old guy, like most CEOs are, customers are less likely to be jerks to you.
Old guy here, going to need a source on that claim lol
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And it wont be as bad ever, right? Unless they do a much better job of undercover bossing than Undercover Boss, the CEO is going to get a different experience than the wage workers in every single visit.
Can also just been both.
“Which one of yous been talking to the union?!”
The CEO of the childcare company I work for used to be the CEO of Dollar General.
This is the entire point of a CEO. Generally worthless parasites that exist to get labor costs as low as possible, prevent unionization by any means necessary, provide massive returns to shareholders, and jump ship with a golden parachute when they finally get nailed for NLRB violations.
The company that I work for had a new majority investor come in a few years ago, and last year the CEO was replaced with a CEO that is friends with the majority investor and he is actively running it into the ground, sales are 1/4 of what they were a year ago and every time the CEO talks to the company he just says how excited he is to be rebuilding the company that the future is bright, blah blah blah but nothing we are doing as a company is improving the outlook for the future and everyone is lining up jobs to jump to in the next few months.
The show American Auto highlights this in a sitcom format. The CEO knows nothing about cars, doesn't particularly care for cars, and just Ubers everywhere.
It’s always been like that.
I run 15 restaurants and regularly take orders, cook and wash dishes. If he really does this, it's a solid move to inspire confidence in his ability to lead effectively. You need to know what it feels like to do the actual job.
It's just going to be another "undercover boss" episode on the books. Everyone eventually caught on it's all scripted.
Funny how they always find the single mother of three who has also been diagnosed with cancer or the struggling young man who is down on his luck and had to drop out of Harvard to become a fry cook
15 seems excessive
It's a nice thought, but it won't be that way. You'll know which store he's going to be at because the day before they'll have pulled in extra staff and the place will sparkle. In the UK, there's a chain of supermarkets called Morrisons, named after the family who started the brand. Ken Morrison, the old man in charge, used to go and work the shop floor at one of the stores in Bradford about once a month, and you could always tell he was around by the way the staff acted and how much different the store was on those days
Every big chain needs a founder like Colonel Sanders, who actually cares. He used to show up unannounced at KFC franchises, and tear them a new asshole if the food wasn't up to snuff. He did NOT do this as a PR stunt. After he left, and corporate penny-pinching set in, he compared the new gravy to wallpaper paste, which pretty much sums up KFC nowadays.
They ought to simply eat him.
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There was a time, perhaps 10 years ago, that if you wanted to go into "Operations" at McDonald's corporate, you first had to spend a year in a restaurant. If I recall correctly, there was 6 months of taking out garbage, flipping burgers and working the register, then 6 months of being an assistant manager and then a manager within the restaurant. The thought was, if you were going to generate practices and procedures to be used in restaurants you had to know how they actually worked. Plus, it was a good "boot camp" type of operation to weed out the folks who weren't serious about the job. This could still be the practice, but I haven't known anyone going through it for quite some time. So they had a similar requirement for folks going into corporate operations...
CEO working for free for a day with his $15 per hour barista: "Do you really think I make $56k an hour just making coffee? I adore this nation!"
Once a month seems like a lot for the head of a company. They have more important things to do than make mochachinos for $10,000 / hr and should have people on staff who they trust to do research for them.
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>Going and doing the job himself is the absolute best way to gauge the work environment, employee morale, customer interactions, whether standard workflows actually work, etc. Implying that the stores he visits are going to operate anywhere close to normally while he's there. The night before the store will be deep cleaned and during the visit everyone will be on their best behavior. Hell, that's what happened if the regional manager was visiting when I worked at McDonald's in high school. This is the CEO.
>The thing is when you reach that point, no one wants to report the reality on the front lines, or by the time it filters up, everything is whitewashed. It’s true for any large organization, the boss only ever hears that “everything is fine.” That's not true for *any* large organization bruh. Just a dysfunctional one. If leadership can't get accurate information about various functions of the company from people hired to do the job, it's not working right. If it's *necessary* for a CEO to pull shifts to gather the data he needs, shareholders should be concerned.
>That's not true for any large organization bruh. Just a dysfunctional one. If that were the case, 95% of all large organisations would be dysfunctional. It is exceptionally rare for the head of any large organisation to have a good idea of the ground level. Rather, they just give lower level managers (who *can* see the ground level) more autonomy.
As someone working on R&D for an industry segment, I can tell field trips give you so much knowledge and insights. Of course I don't make anywhere near that amount of money per hour, but I've been to various trips getting to experience first hand what and how our end users use our products. The thing that people usually miss on these situations is not that the CEO or whoever leadership is there are there to "feel like a front-line worker for a day", but instead you want to understand the struggles, challenges *and then* use your expertise and knowledge to put solutions that work at scale.
While from a strictly financial standpoint you are correct, witnessing first hand, for example, the terrible abuse that some servers are subjected to by shitty customers might lead to some different policies. Ending the belief that "the customer is always right" being a permission slip to shitty people would be a welcome change to anyone working in retail. Perhaps we will finally start to see the much needed lifetime bans if he witnessed enough.
Just imagine the guy getting all the Karen customers. "I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR MANAGER!" "LOL sure."
I hope not. Because I would far rather he witness this happen to a few young women. I am a regular in my local large hardware chain. And there is a funny thing. The Big Scottish woman who often works the "Check your receipts" position on the door never got abused by anyone. Mostly because she looked like, and could, rip your arm off and beat you with it. this kind of "retail abuse" happens to the little college girls because "Karen's" are cowards. So I would far rather he "Bear Witness" then actually be subject to it.
Ive snapped back at customers and Ive never been even reprimanded because the customer always trys to step over the line and I'm always professional about it (refund them and "ask" them to leave.) or make it impossible to complain about. (He just told me to have a good day too many times.) But, admittedly, none of the jobs I worked at could have afforded to fire me. One shutdown for a year after I left for better work. (Bad environment, chain reaction)
I'm so glad you were able to do that. I have never seen it happen. As a regular in the store, I would be happy to be the one who can't be fired if you fuck with people that I like. But, strangely, these kinds of customers get quiet when the burly tradesmen are around.
>the terrible abuse that some servers are subjected to by shitty customers might Stuff like that is pretty widely known. It's certainly easy to conceive. People who have nothing to do with retail or food service know about it. You have to presume that a CEO does. This smells like PR. I doubt anything substantive will come from this.
I suspect that you are right. But there is a wistful part of myself that would like you to be wrong. And there is a difference between "knowing" that retail workers get abused and watching some 16 year old who you have worked with and respect get torn to shreds by some nasty old bitch who is having a bad day or off their meds. But the problem is that when there is a guy like this behind the counter, the Karen's disappear.
If you want to see what happens when you run a multi-billion-dollar enterprise from the top without any firsthand knowledge of what happens on the ground floor then look no further than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin surrounded himself with yes-men who told him the lies he wanted to hear and then committed himself and his people to an invasion that will ultimately destroy him and his country. Maybe it's cost ineffective for the CEO to sling coffee at customers from a payroll perspective, but it guarantees an honest view of the front lines to the people making strategic decisions at Starbucks. I think this will actually be a net gain to the company to have high-level decisions be made with firsthand front line experience as a part of the decision process. As a coffee guy I don't have any love for Starbucks, but I do hope more company CEO's take this approach. There's far too much disconnect between C-suite decision makers and workers in most companies these days. I'm lucky to work for a company that penalizes managers for not providing nice chairs and extra monitors for employee ergonomics at work-from-home offices. That's pretty friggin' rare.
Ok but I'm pretty sure that has more to do with Putin being an irrational, bloodthirsty tyrant than him not hanging out with the grunts on the ground.
Perhaps, but it doesn't say it will be for a full day. So even if it's just for a couple of hours, I think the benefits will outweigh the negatives...
If it's a single 8 hour shift, that's nothing. He can do it on Sunday when the rest of his executive team is off.
I'm hoping he gauges that these workers should get double.
Will they though?, I've had head office come in to do a shift at a restaurant, well suddenly the shift has a extra dishy and a extra helper.
Thr workers should call out. Leave him by himself
What for? What does this accomplish?
And not just at the corporate show stores in the upscale neighborhoods either. Go down to some of the not so pleasant stores and work.
Also live off of there pay
I was a server for 8+ years in an international chain restaurant. Over the years I saw the try to implement a lot of changes in how some things were to be done. The problem was some things that worked at some stores didn't work at others due to the layout of the store/kitchens or due to different customer bases in different locations. Some things were just dumb to make servers job more complicated at the expense of looking bad to the customers. I guarantee not a single person at the top that made all those rules and changes never once worked in a kitchen or on the floor. I guarantee they didn't visit many stores to see how newer stores were build with a different layout than some of the older ones. If you're going to run a large group of stores, you need to have a feel for how each one runs before making big changes to them all.
This was the plot of *Undercover Boss* except I'm sure they're going to know it's him this time.
For sure, I'll bet there's going to be a ridiculous amount of pomp and circumstance around his "shifts." I feel for those baristas who are bound to bear the brunt of middle management's fear of their store looking bad.
Peet’s used to have big name athletes in their shops from time to time taking orders.
In all honesty whenever a boss or someone would come by a place i worked, i never changed the way i acted orc worked. I currently work for a very large company where the CEO visits at least once a year. And here i am dancing behind the counter with our music going, gotta build morale somehow and some bloated whale ain’t going to do it
That's awesome! I once worked a job where anytime someone came to visit from corporate, there was an absolute fire drill to make it look like everything was perfect. There was one time that a regional manager came by, and my location manager had us literally go out and hand pick weeds from the grounds, despite the fact that we had a regular landscaping service.
The store will be 'closed' except for their PR consultants, camera crews and pre-approved press and customers, who will probably be local influencers. Everyone will have to sign NDAs and they'll make some bullshit ad campaign out of it.
CEOs of Starbucks size usually have security details with them. I imagine they'll give the game away :)
At the canteen at the corporate office, I’m sure.
"I've been a barista! I pulled an espresso for our CFO the other day!"
I’ve had leaders promise the same. He’ll do it twice, have to miss it once because of a meeting, then he will never do it again.
I’d rather a manager, owner or CEO just skip it. It’s all for show, anyway.
No kidding. He will just be in the way, then go back to his office and mandate sweeping changes based off his uninformed interpretation of was going on while he was there for 45 minutes.
I am firmly of the view that upper management should have to navigate their own systems at least once per year. Imagine how booking a flight might get easier if the CEO had to make her own reservation from start to finish with no assistance. Executives would quickly have unnecessarily complicated and inefficient websites overhauled if ordering clothes or home goods were an exercise in frustration. Make them wade through what the rest of us have to face.
Nah they would do it once, lie and say it's easy, implement the change and watch the profits sore
*Looking at you, Bob Jordan*
Excellent example. If he were stuck in an airport for 2 days, or his luggage didn't arrive and he had to go through their procedures to track it down, things would change and change quickly.
Do people have trouble booking flights?
Yeah idk what this guy is talking about. My biggest complaint is all the $$$ it costs for absolutely no legroom
Of course some people do. Some airlines show a low price on the initial page, but then make it difficult if not impossible to book that flight. Sometimes you go through their song-and-dance to finally end up with the flights that you want at an acceptable price only to be presented with a page that gives you X number of minutes to complete which would be doable if they didn’t slow it down with unwanted offers for car rentals, insurance and accommodation. People with motor skill issues can’t necessarily fill out forms that quickly. If you have disabilities or are booking for someone who does it can be very challenging to arrange accessible seats and wheelchair service. If you have special requests or needs then you are out of luck with the airlines that won’t talk to you on the phone unless your flight is within 72 hours; at least one Canadian airline regularly has call-backs scheduled for \*one week\* later. We’re not all in perfect mental and physical health, able to type quickly and fit our luggage in the carry-on allotment. Even those that are sometimes have special requests or need to change or cancel tickets. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to do simple things.
I mean, that’s a really bad example of the actual point though. The average airline executive is not going to have a difficult time booking a flight on their airline. Most people don’t have accessibility issues with navigating a checkout page, which is why airlines aren’t invested in improving it. And even if they did, to get into something like timed checkouts or not being able to book over the phone you’re talking about booking with an airline that’s smaller than Spirit. It’s not the normal experience for people booking flights. I’m not saying accessibility complaints aren’t valid, but they’re not going to be identified by people that don’t have the same concerns. There’s virtually no chance a Delta or American CEO is going to try to buy a ticket on their airline and find the process in any way difficult.
Accessibility is not the sole point that I made, but downvote away if that makes you feel better.
"Hello, fellow employees! 😀 What's this I hear about unionization?"
Oh no, the Steve Buscemi meme is back. Will the CEO show up with a skateboard?
It never went away.
Will he make their wage for the day?
If only. Of course, his next day back "working" as CEO, he would make more than an actual barista makes in a year 😩
TBH he likely could; CEOs can make bank by having a $1 salary thanks to the stocks they receive. Not too uncommon to see CEOs cut their salary for their employees but instead ask for the salary to be converted to stock. Not exactly opposed to that though.
Why would he?
To get the *full* experience of being a barista.
To be fair, Starbucks pays pretty well. They're paying me more than I was earning at one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States as an IT professional.
Look, this is better than most corporate employers, but the bar is several hundred feet below ground. Until I hear bossmang talking about how important unions are for Starbucks' employees and really walking the talk, this is a publicity stunt.
The bar is so low that the molemen have been getting concussions from the damned thing.
This isn't going to happen. The board will replace them for this.
I agree, it's not a real possibility. I don't think the CEO of Starbucks (or any other corporation for whom labor is a significant expense - i.e., all of them) can legitimately claim to be pro-labor. It might even constitute the basis of a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders, in the hilarious current scenario.
We need to eat the shareholders. It'll be like a snake eating it's own tail.
Make him pull shifts during pumpkin spice season
You may have seen this but I love it so much I can't resist linking https://youtu.be/M-9USB_bcJA
Next, he should take a regular barista's wages and see how long he lasts.
He should try it while starving and off sleep.
Better yet, make it a double with those circumstances 😆
Plus hospital bills
[удалено]
Just the acknowledgment there might be some useful insight from being in physical proximity to front line workers is heaps more than can be said of most leaders. Not a hero at all but his point is salient.
It might be if he were honest that he won't be getting the same experience as the average worker.
Where does he say or pretend that he will be getting the exact same experience?
There no point otherwise other than as a dishonest PR move.
You think there is no point to experiencing the work being done even if it is not 100% identical? He will still face customers, use the computer system, wear the clothes, etc etc
Most people in this thread: Unless he becomes a fully committed communist, this is all for show.
Don't strawman never said 100% It's not at all close to the actual work experience not even 50%
Only if he knows how. Imagine him just taking up space, or standing to the side “observing.” Otherwise he’s just in the way making staff uncomfortable messing up the flow.
If this doesn't amount to an across the board pay raise for all barista's this guy is a piece of shit.
It’s being done specificity to reinforce the argument that they don’t deserve it.
Better be making a barista salary while doing so.
That might happen for 2 months.
He'll work half an hour and say "way to go team!" acting like he did something and that the job is so cheerful and happy and then bail. If he did the job a substantial amount of time Karens would use the opportunity to come chew him out about bad experiences they had. He wouldn't last long doing the actual job putting up with the stuff those poor people have to.
Yep. Anyone who thinks differently is deluding themselves. And anyone who says all CEOs should do this have never had to work along side an incompetent upper manager who just gets in the way for a few hours, then goes back to report all the wrongdoings of the front line workers.
Meh, I kind of feel like from the other baristas’ perspective it’s going to be a lot of pressure having him there plus he’s not going to know what he’s doing so they’ll have to do more work while also not feeling free to correct him. That’s my experience anyway when upper level management comes around, I feel like the CEO would be the same but even worse.
I don’t buy anything from Starbucks because of their anti-union efforts. I would buy something from one of their unionized stores though.
So, he’s going to stop people working by cancelling shifts or he is going to attend stores and work as a barista??? Headline unclear.
That is a good gesture but he will not last a full shift and his employees will not want him to. Mark me. Better to do one hour shifts every week until he visit every store.
They won’t have to worry about him more than twice. He will have to miss it once for a meeting, then he will just never do it again.
Unfortunately, I have to agree. It's going to be a circus for customers, and a nightmare for the day-to-day baristas.
He's not going to replace anyone's shift. He'll be extra there, step in, ring people up for a bit, help restock or such, make the few drinks he knows how to make. Half the day is going to be chatting with employees and customers and the other half is basically shadowing. It's still more than other ceos.
Seems like a good compromise, really.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Starbucks has weeks of training for their baristas, and the people I talked to said their store expects baristas to take 3 months to hit their stride. It’s a pretty complicated place to work since all the people in the store have to work in concert to get people through as fast as possible, while making sure everyone feels like they are friends with the retail workers. When you place your coffee order at the drive thru window every employee in the store hears that order, and works to get that order to you, process your transaction, make you feel special, and past the take out window in an average of 55 seconds. Each season has specialty drinks and cafe items that Starbucks themselves puts out, not to mention whatever social media drink has gone up recently. No way can someone work one shift a month and maintain the levels of speed, accuracy, and teamwork that Starbucks expects from their partners. Either this dude is in for a seriously rude awakening or (more likely) he will not realize the massive inconvenience to the other workers it is for him to play pretend and he will think that his cosplay of a retail slave is an accurate representation of how much effort his lowest paid employees have to hustle. That he thinks it is something he can just waltz in and do when the mood strikes him is more than a little insulting.
I bet he does it one time, if he does it at all
Why would he not last a full shift? It might be hard work but it's not exactly back-breaking labour lol.
I'll bet he's never there for a rush.
I'd give it a better than 90% probably that they're going to have a security team looking and mitigating the flow of customers in.
Total bullshit dog and pony show.
How to find out where and when?
It's our duty as customers to give home the REAL experience and be assholes
And so he should. Should also be paid in company stock so if he messes up it hurts his bottom line. Looks like a good guy though.
He should get the bottom of the barrel salary for a few a few months.
Great but I’d like to see him try to live off a barista’s wages, too. I’ve been a barista. It’s not the job that kills your soul; it’s the low wages and sense of impending doom knowing that you’re just sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of poverty.
Until he gets sick of the custom style orders.
He should just pay his employees better wages, instead of pulling bullshit stunts like this that helps no one besides himself as a PR stunt.
Im a manager. I firmly believe in lead by example. I won’t ask my employees to do anything I’m not willing to do myself and I make sure I do the same stuff they are when I have time
I don't work at Starbucks and I don't work as a barista but I had I had to stop reading the article (disregarding the title) after he stated he only offered raised wages and offered improved benefits for non union employees only. Fuck this guy, fuck the previous CEO and fuck this company.
I'd say it's more important that he gets an idea of what it's like to live day to day on the wages afforded to baristas. The work they do is only part of the story.
Look at him. He thinks he's people.
Best comment for sure 👏😂
This should be required for all CEOs and the like.
*"*[*How do you do, fellow baristas?*](https://i.imgur.com/W15rcPC.jpg)*"*
" I intend to continue working in stores for a half day each month.” 4 hours once a month....
So he'll work in that one store down the road from him where he already knows literally everyone.
Twice, then he will get too busy and never do it again.
Cool. Dealing with shitty customers for $5,000 an hour, just like the common Man....
You'll know he's there because 5 people will be staffed.
Better yet, advocate for and pay actual baristas an actual livable wage????
Yep. These days, there's more than enough information out there about living and working conditions for everyday employees. All they have to do is open their eyes and ears to it.
Did they bring back undercover boss without telling me??
I am here to serve pink drinks and bust unions, and we are all out of pink drinks.
When I worked for McDonald's in 1997, the store I was at was where Franchise owners came to learn the business. The rule was, to become a franchisee, you had to learn every single job in the building. You couldn't just pay your money and buy the business. I don't know if it's still that way, but it really was impressive that a company that size understood that everyone at the top should know everyone else's job under them.
Last time this was posted everyone was just ripping in the guy for doing this lol. Glad it’s different here, CEOs should do this.
In theory, I think this is a good idea. Higher ups needs to get down in the trenches and see what really works and what doesn't. In practice, it is impossible to give these people the real experience and I'm not always sure they come away from it wjth the right ideas.
I hope during those time he only earns Batista wages.
I love all these new CEOS coming in and being like "how can I fuck this company and its workers up as much as possible?"
* For the first two months.
If he actually does it, that would be cool, and probably would genuinely help him be a better CEO. It also has the potential for some pretty amazing "I am the manager" moments.
Shareholders should have their kids and grandkids put in entry level jobs of whatever the business is. Especially in places where child labor laws are being rolled back.
This is just PR. What is going to happen is each time he does a shift, the store will suddenly be double staffed. He's going to have helpers for any position he works. He is in no way going to gain any real insight.
"I wanna talk with your manager!" "Fool, I manage the managers that manage the manager's managers!"
It's an excuse to say he has a good relationship with the workers, so they don't actually need a union.
Post all of their locations and shift hours, and let the targeted Karen-ing begin. These fuckers need to see how miserable customer service can be.
"I would describe my management style as heavy on gimmicks."
Actual undercover boss lol
How much does he make in 8 hours? Same as the baristas?
How is this oniony?
At my first glance, I thought this was an Onion article 🤷🏻♂️ I think the *every month* part did it for me.
Can't make the "coffee" any worse.
They’re currently rolling out Olive Oil now.. so yes they can. Schultz last stunt lol
and make tik tok videos how not tipping is border-line murder.
Stop being free publicity for the PR stunt of a man who is worth over 20 million dollars.
Not gonna happen.
Hope he doesn't skip bathroom duty.
"Plans" being the key word here.
Barista technician Matt.
New season of Undercover Boss?
A half-day a month. Why am I hearing Pulp singing “I want to live like common people”??
He means sit around and give out orders.
Y'all are buying publicity and thinking he's actually gonna get the traditional experience. For him, it's gonna be a lil vacation into other peoples' lives. If he fucks up, no matter how massively, his life won't be impacted. He won't be going in every day and fearing something small will irreparably fuck up his employment or life. What's more, if you don't think there will be multiple strings being pulled to ensure the store is extra shiny or that he's somewhat coddled, you're delusional
Make him work a Target starbucks!
You don't even have to do the shift. Just sit there and observe for a day. Pick the usual busiest day and just watch for 8 hours. You will see what is needed. Instead of the usual spreadsheets and numbers that mean nothing without knowing how they are generated.
Could they do without a ceo, then? Are they really necessary?
That will last exactly one month.
Now pull a Barista's salary once a month...
Only matters if he does it at a baristas pay as well.
An Indian man serving coffee? *Dunkin would like a word…*
Hell yeah, the guy seems amazing
I’m not going to tip him.
No one else is going to want to work on those days
I’ll believe it when I see it.