As most all of you have heard and seen on the news, Starbucks has recently cut labor for baristas. The lack of labor has caused some issues inside the coffee shops, along with the personal lives of baristas. The company has been known for the awesome benefits and pay for its employees. However, with the recent labor cuts, many baristas are losing their benefits and finding it difficult to pay the bills.
Benefits offered by Starbucks, including tuition reimbursement, health insurance, and others, require a twenty hour minimum work week. With the labor cuts, baristas who want to work at least those twenty hours are finding it extremely difficult. Not only are baristas losing benefits and money to go toward the bills at home, things inside the shops are becoming increasingly chaotic. With less hours to give to baristas, managers are forced to under-staff the stores.
Typically in the Starbucks I work at there are, at most, four people on the floor. Most times it is difficult for the store manager and shift manager to be on the floor with the baristas due to duties off the floor that need to be taken care of, leaving maybe two people, and sometimes one person to man the floor. With only two people working the front of the house, things behind the bar get chaotic. When you have a line out the door and only one person on bar making the drinks, things can get a little ridiculous. Customers get frustrated, baristas get frustrated, drinks may not be made perfectly, the area behind the bar becomes messy, and none of this is acceptable. In general, being short-staffed makes things entirely too stressful behind the bar, but being short-staffed during the summer and around new product launches is absolutely insane.
With Starbucks being as profitable as it is now, no store should have to endure a rush in the middle of summer with only two or three people on the floor. These working conditions are irritating for everyone involved. To the customers who have expressed concerns and frustrations, us baristas hear you. We understand that waiting for one cup of coffee for twenty minutes on your lunch break can be outrageous, but please bear with your local baristas when this happens-- I promise you, they are trying their best. We hear that you are disappointed with some of your Starbucks experiences as of late, and we completely understand. With the labor cuts, many baristas are becoming jaded and morale is at a steady decline in some cases. Things need to change with how Starbucks is being operated in order to perform optimal costumer service.
