According to reports, new Starbucks CEO Brian Nicol has expressed stress, complaining that he has been thrown into a “skeletal” crew as they scramble to fill a barrage of coffee orders. He said he was facing the baristas who were in trouble.
An internal survey of Starbucks' 10,000 U.S. stores found that only about one-third of Starbucks baristas said their stores were consistently adequately staffed, indicating that staffing issues are a problem for the chain. It has become clear that this is the biggest problem. Viewed by Bloomberg.
“We're always given only people,” one employee wrote in the comments section of the survey, Bloomberg reported.
In addition to staffing shortages, the Seattle-based coffee giant said fewer than half of the employees surveyed had reliable machinery to grind and extract Java beans in their stores, causing further congestion. I said yes.
On Nicol's second day at work, an employee asked him about a problem with the equipment.
“The team is already working on it,” Nicol said, according to a recording reviewed by Bloomberg.
That same day, Nicol wrote an open letter to baristas saying he would give them the “tools and time” they needed to do their jobs, according to the report.
Since Mr. Nicol took the helm in August, investors have wondered if he could achieve similar results at Chipotle, where he fended off activist hedge funds and doubled sales to about $10 billion in 2023. I was hoping that there would be.
Nicole focused on modernizing Chipotle's digital and mobile ordering platform and introducing digital order pickup lanes.
Starbucks is facing staffing issues in addition to a rush of online orders during the early morning commute, leading to long lines and customer complaints.
Starbucks is also refining the model it uses for staffing, a Starbucks spokesperson said. Starbucks has already added staff at 3,500 stores last year.
The company has upgraded equipment, including adding portable blenders to make Starbucks' popular cold-form toppings, and created new barista roles at each store to prevent bottlenecks during busy service hours.
Despite this, store managers are often unable to handle administrative tasks because they have to jump on drink duty to clear long lines, three managers told Bloomberg.
One manager said that while other employees juggle multiple workstations at once, baristas regularly skip breaks and meals to accommodate the increased line volume.
According to messages posted on the company bulletin board, managers who are salaried workers have been making requests to the company regarding staffing levels since at least the beginning of 2023.
The survey, seen by Bloomberg, surveyed more than 200,000 employees at company-owned stores in the United States. Approximately 80% of these employees responded.
Starbucks said the survey shows “consistent improvement” as the percentage of employees who say their stores are adequately staffed has increased since the last survey.
However, the percentage of retail employees who recommend Starbucks as a great place to work decreased by 3 percentage points to 64%.
Only a quarter of employees at Starbucks Reserve & Roastery stores (an upscale urban chain with a wide range of food options and specialty drinks) believe their stores are fully staffed. I answered. Only half of these employees would recommend Starbucks as a great place to work.
