HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Starbucks Human Resource Management Policies and the Growth Challenge



Starbucks Human Resource Management Policies and the Growth Challenge

Introduction

Starbucks Corporation is an international chain of coffee, which started its business from Seattle. Starbucks are the world's largest coffee company, which has approximately 18,000 stores in more than fifty countries. Starbucks sells coffee brewed, espresso hot drinks and other drinks, along with snacks and some other products such as cups and grains of coffee. It also offers books, music CDs, and movies. In 1971, Starbucks launched its first store in Seattle, Washington, which involved three partners. The three partners included Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker. These three persons highly inspired by an entrepreneur named Alfred Peet, who had a coffee shop that sold coffee beans and machines, since 1971 to 1976. At first, Alfred Peet managed to attract a pool of customers in the first year. However, the customers started to buy green coffee from other suppliers (Jackson 2007, pp. 727-786). In 1982, there three partners joined by Howard Schultz, an entrepreneur who suggested that the company needed to expand the sales of coffee beans, selling espresso and others, which they rejected. The founders considered that the new activity would distract the company's original goal also believed that coffee was something to be prepared at home.

Howard convinced about his idea that it would certainly make more money by offering pre-made coffee to the Americans. As a result, Howard Schultz opened, in 1985, his own chain of coffee shops under the name II Giornale. A year earlier, the three original founders decided to buy the company of Alfred Peet, “Peet's”. Furthermore, the founders sold the coffee shop chain “Starbucks” to Howard Schutz, who then decided to change the company name II Giornale to Starbucks. In 1987, the new Starbucks opened the first premises on the outskirts of Seattle and Chicago. The company joined the stock exchange on June 26th of 1992, since then, the shares have had a sustained growth reaching U.S. $39 in 2006. However, the company showed a negative growth in the following year as the share price decreased to $17.

Human Resource Management

The role of Human Resource Department of any company is to offer work incentives, information regarding safety procedures and sick or vacation leaves. The basic concept of Human Resource management is the proper management of people. It necessitates planning ahead for the betterment of the company also tries to meet the needs of employees in the best possible way. This certainly changes the way activities performed at a business site. It brings lots of improvement in the selection of employees and the training programs for the proper assessment of techniques and discipline (González 2008, pp. 56-75).

HRM concerns with how organizations manage their workforce. The process of managing workforce involves all active members of the company to understand general management and control tasks. It is essential for an organization to establish effective management systems, to understand and manage the implementation of measures aimed at the achievement of ...