Making Sure the Cup Stays Full at Starbucks:
Leveraging Narratives from Glassdoor.com to Improve Recruitment and
Retention
By Jess Stein, Sophie Sakellariadis & Alex Cole
July 2015
Background: Employee engagement in the retail industry has long been an uphill
battle, but Starbucks has been a trailblazer in the field, pioneering generous health
benefits, tuition support, and long-term career development programs. But are these
efforts paying off? Critically, have they impacted the mindsets employees hold about
Starbucks in a way that fuels retention, recruitment, and ultimately profit? Using over
5,000 company reviews from Glassdoor.com, Monitor 360 applied its Narrative
Analytics™ methodology to uncover the narratives that employees hold about
Starbucks and identify opportunities for Starbucks—and others in the retail
industry—to improve employee engagement initiatives, optimize its externally-facing
employment brand, and drive business success.
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE: IMPROVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
AND EMPLOYMENT BRAND TO REDUCE TURNOVER AND ENHANCE
RECRUITMENT
In the world of retail, Starbucks is an undisputed champion of employee engagement,
recruitment, and retention. CEO Howard Schultz claims that Starbucks’ relationship
“with our people and the culture of our company is our most sustainable competitive
advantage."i The company prides itself on its “legendary service,” and supports wideranging perks for members of the Starbucks “family”—including full health benefits
for part-time employees and unprecedented tuition reimbursement for Arizona State
University’s online courses—that frequently attract top recruits in the retail industry.
Starbucks’ innovations in employee engagement have yielded tangible results,
contributing to an average rating on Glassdoor.com of 3.8 stars out of 5—compared
to 2.8 for Dunkin Donuts and 3.2 for Peet’s Coffee—and helping Starbucks to beat
the average industry turnover rate by 140%. Yet in spite of its impressive
performance in relation to its peers, the level of turnover at Starbucks is still costly,
requiring the company to invest $3,000 to replace just one barista.
What more can the company do to close the door on employee exits and attract highquality recruits? Beyond just offering more expensive perks, how can Starbucks
leadership identify what motivates their 190,000 employees, and more effectively
connect with—and shape—existing beliefs employees hold about the company that
affect morale and inform the perception of their “employment brand” with
prospective employees?
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THE GOAL: UNCOVER ORGANIZATIONAL NARRATIVES THAT
PRESENT OPPORTUNITIES TO BOLSTER EMPLOYEE ENGAGMENT
Monitor 360 set out to understand the “why” behind employee satisfaction at
Starbucks—to uncover what employees really believe about the company, and
identify new opportunities to more effectively shape engagement initiatives. Using
our Narrative AnalyticsTM methodology, we analyzed over 5,000 U.S.-based
employee reviews of Starbucks on Glassdoor.com. Through our analysis, we surfaced
six distinct organizational narratives that employees hold about the company, and
measured their Narrative VolumeTM.*
*Narrative Volume scores indicate the percentage of employee comments that invoke
a particular narrative.
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THE GOOD: NARRATIVES ABOUT THE REWARDS OF WORKING AT
STARBUCKS DRIVE A STRONG COMMUNITY SPIRIT
More than 60% of employee comments expressed confidence in Starbucks’ senior
leadership and company vision. The three narratives that comprised this coverage—
“Starbucks the Star,” “Grueling with a Shot of Great,” and “‘Ground’ by Middle
Management”—focused more on employees’ pride in Starbucks’ vision and values
than on benefits, suggesting that consistently delivering an inspiring narrative about
the value of employees to the company can motivate as much as offering free lattes.
What’s more, the two highest volume narratives—“Starbucks the Star” and “Grueling
with a Shot of Great”—suggest that Starbucks can be an exciting place to build a
career.
Moreover, even negative narratives like “Part Time Pariah” and “Baristas are the
Backbone” praised the benefits and perks that Starbucks provides. Interestingly, these
narratives referenced employees’ satisfaction with cost-efficient benefits, like free
coffee and parking, more often than more costly ones like excellent healthcare
coverage—indicating that sweeteners small and large can deepen employee
satisfaction.
THE BAD: LIMITED GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES AND MIDDLE
MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT
While narratives like “Starbucks the Star” and “Grueling with a Shot of Great” depict
Starbucks as an exciting place to build a career, narratives like “Part Time Pariah”
and “Baristas are the Backbone” bemoan the difficulties of building a career at
Starbucks—revealing one critical driver of employee turnover. While less prominent
than positive narratives about the company’s vision and values, combined they
comprise a concerning 31 percent of total employee comments.
The “‘Ground’ by Middle Management” narrative suggests that many employees who
have a positive view of Starbucks as a corporation simultaneously hold major
concerns about middle management. Many view middle managers as out of touch—
visiting stores infrequently and promoting those who are undeserving. This suggests
that leadership’s efforts to brand Starbucks as a place for opportunity resonate deeply
with employees on an emotional level, but that same vision is not regularly
communicated by local company leadership nor does the inspiring vision always
match the day-to-day reality.
Though it was lowest in volume, the “Glorified Fast Food” narrative also posses
potential existential challenges to Starbucks’ internally and externally facing brand.
This narrative reflects employee beliefs that Starbucks is losing its identity as a
specialty brewer, suggesting that replacing the art of brewing with increased
mechanization can damage retention. This narrative also presents threats to
Starbucks’ external brand: Should it spill over to Starbucks’ customer base, it could
endanger Starbucks positioning as a provider of “special experience” that founder
Howard Schultz refers to as the “third place”, undermining its ability to charge
premium prices.
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Narrative
Starbucks the
Star
Grueling with
a Shot of
Great
Part-Time
Pariah
“Ground” by
Middle
Management
Baristas are
the Backbone
Glorified Fast
Food
Volume
Score
Summary
Working here is more than a job — I’m proud to come to work and to serve excellent
coffee to my community. My team is fun, the company gives me health and dental, free
coffee, and parking, and I have flexibility to pick my own hours. As long as I ask, my
manager will give me opportunities to grow. I feel like Starbucks treats me like a true
partner, I can honestly see myself making a lasting career here. My only advice to
management is to keep up the good work!
Working at Starbucks isn’t for everyone. The job is fast-paced and stressful, the
customers can be a total nightmare, and the pay is sometimes tough. But, I’m getting
broad exposure to the service industry, solid training, and decent opportunities for
advancement. I love my team, and of course, the benefits and free coffee are hard to
beat. It’s a good gig, and overall, management has built an empowering culture—you
just have to know what you’re in for.
Starbucks provides some positive short-term training opportunities, but it isn’t
somewhere anyone wants to stay for long. I started here when I was a student because
it’s a solid part-time opportunity— flexible hours, great benefits, and who doesn’t love
free coffee. But it isn’t a place where you can realistically advance or make a viable full
time wage. Most of us are just part-timers who will be out the door soon, and I’m tired
of working hard for almost no pay. If Starbucks wants to keep good people around, they
need to make it more worthwhile and figure out how to empower their employees.
I think upper leadership truly cares about its employees and promotes a strong culture,
but too often, middle managers at the district level make an otherwise positive
experience sour. They always seem to be rewarding the wrong people, and they hardly
ever come to the stores, so they force us to push products that we know won’t make
sense to our customers. I love my team and believe in the company vision, but it’s too
frustrating to work with clueless middlemen, and they are driving the best partners out.
Starbucks used to be a great company, but its leaders have forgotten what matters the
most—the baristas. Yes, the healthcare coverage is good, but I’m constantly
overworked and the pay is terrible. And while I understand that we need to please our
customers, managers have taken the “customers always come first” mentality too far.
Management consistently ignores people on the frontlines, failing to build on their
creativity and passion for coffee and customer service. To get back on track,
management needs to listen to the baristas and treat them like partners again.
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21
12
10
Working for Starbucks is better than working for McDonald’s or Burger King — but
not much better. We are losing the art of being a barista, focusing more on machines
and assembly-line production, skimping on training to cut costs, and forgetting the
creativity and community that go into a good cup of coffee. If the company continues
on this path, we’ll completely lose our status as a specialty brewer, and just become
another generic chain.
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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR STARBUCKS: AMPLIFY THE POSITIVE,
ADDRESS MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT, AND IDENTIFY TRIGGERS OF
NEW THREATS TO THE COMPANY’S SPECIALTY BRAND
What can Starbucks learn from the narratives their employees hold to maintain its
competitive edge in recruitment, retention, and engagement?
Amplify narratives connected to company values. High impact narratives like
“Starbucks the Star” suggest that Starbucks employees are uniquely motivated by the
company vision and commitment to employee engagement. Starbucks should
articulate this vision to employees consistently and continually to ensure this narrative
remains top of mind. At the same time, it’s critical to continue to deliver generous
perks and rewards to employees to ensure that employees feel the message from
leadership is credible. If Starbucks faces pressure to cut costs, it would be wise to
avoid cutting these perks as doing so risks increasing employee turnover.
Address concerns around “‘Ground’ by Middle Management.” By assessing
narratives that arise in internal survey comments tagged with key demographic
indicators, such as geography, age, or position, Starbucks can pinpoint where
concerns about middle management are most acute, and build a targeted strategy to
address those concerns. For example, Starbucks could build training programs in
regions where the “‘Ground’ By Middle Management” narrative is more prevalent to
foster more productive interactions between lower and middle level employees, and
expose managers to daily challenges in stores that they can help to address. V
Reframe “Glorified Fast Food.” Starbucks can invest in understanding what triggers
the “Glorified Fast Food” narrative before the narrative creates existential threats to
the company’s consumer facing brand as well as their employment brand. With
proper data and deeper analysis, Starbucks can uncover the actions, communications,
or strategic decisions that inflame this narrative, such as investment in drive-through
locations or replacing manual processes with machines. Examining the narratives that
consumers espouse about Starbucks in social and traditional media outlets can also
help leadership to monitor and address the threats this narrative presents.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OTHER RETAIL COMPANIES: REDUCE
TURNOVER BY SHAPING EMPLOYEE NARRATIVES
What can other companies learn from Starbucks’ employee engagement strategy? To
better connect with employees on their own terms, other companies should leverage
the wealth of online data from sites like Glassdoor as well as existing investments in
internal data to understand what employees are saying about them, and gain insight
into the narratives that drive perceptions and behavior. Versions of narratives like
“‘Ground by Middle Management” exist in many companies, the trick is
understanding what triggers them. Companies should consciously design their
communication and engagement initiatives around the unique narratives their
employees hold to ensure that they resonate with employees, and address their unique
concerns. Firms can then monitor narrative changes over time, measure the impact of
communication activities, and adjust tactics to improve employee engagement.
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ABOUT MONITOR 360: CLARITY FROM COMPLEXITY
Monitor 360 is the Narrative Analytics and Strategy company. We help organizations
understand, analyze, and shape the narratives that are most impacting their business
objectives. Narrative Analytics is a listening-oriented approach that combines the
depth of social science with the scale of data science to analyze large data sets—
ranging from social media, traditional media, blogs, and internal survey data—to
surface “beliefs at scale.”
Over the past 10 years, Monitor 360 has identified underlying beliefs in over 40
countries around the world and in complex domains ranging from climate change to
cybersecurity. Through Narrative Analytics, we’re now leveraging this narrative
expertise to solve clients’ key business problems, including finding unexpected ways
for organizations to build brands that resonate more deeply, manage reputations in
complex environments, and develop employee engagement efforts that stick.
Monitor 360’s clients include the Charles Schwab, PG&E, and Salesforce.com. If it’s
a hard, fast-moving narrative problem, we’re probably working on it - whether it’s for
a major corporation, foundation, or the White House.
Want more information about how Narrative AnalyticsTM can help you achieve your
business goals? Contact Kevin Rockmael at [email protected].
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