A work-Life committee is a group of people that work to ensure that there is equilibrium between personal life, family life and professional life in an organization. In other words, the committee works to ensure efficient split of time and energy spent in various aspects of life. I have volunteered as a member of the work-life committee at Starbucks corporation. This task aims to discuss the importance of involving health professionals in the implementation of health programs. The initiative will also discuss how health professionals collaborate and educate employers and managers.
Psychologists, employee assistance professionals, and human resource professionals work together with employers and managers to improve the mental well-being of employees in Starbucks company in several ways. The employee assistance professionals at Starbucks company educate employees on financial matters regularly (Attridge, 2019). The psychologist professionals in the company encourage the employees to focus on their physical health (Yolles, 2017). The human resource professionals in the company have created a culture that values each team members.
One of the concepts in ecology that can help professionals to design and improve workspaces is an environmental adaptation (Sinha, 2018). It means that how individuals behave, look, and are built makes them suitable for survival in the workplaces. The humanistic, cognitive, and behavioral are concepts from psychology that can help design and improve workspaces (Harris et al., 2018). The reason is that ideas help in the identification of problems. The concepts also help to solve problems, increase the motivation of employees, and improve the dynamics at places of work. The philosophical ideas that can help professionals to design and enhance workspaces include ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology (Izutsu, 2016). The philosophical concepts strengthen the ability of professionals at Starbucks company to solve complex problems, improve communication skills, and enhances the ability to persuade.
Unit 2 IP
Starbucks Corporation is an American based chain of coffee houses and roastery reserves. Starbucks is ranked as the largest chain of coffee houses in the world and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington (Rothaermel, 2017). The company has more than 30,000 coffee houses located in different regions and is present in more than 70 countries (Rothaermel, 2017). It serves hot drinks, cold drinks, espresso, whole-bean coffee and caffe latte to mention a few. Starbucks was founded by a partnership of three, Gordon Bowker, Zev Siegl, and Jerry Baldwin in 1971 (Rothaermel, 2017). The three met when they were students at the University of San Francisco and were inspired by entrepreneur Alfred Peet. However, during the 1980s, the founders sold the company to Howard Schultz. Many of Starbucks’ stores sell pre-packaged food items, hot and cold sandwiches, drinkware, and pastries (Rothaermel, 2017). Other stores focus on selling appetizers, wines, and beer. The company began the now-famous Starbucks reserve program in 2010.
The work-life program has been on at Starbucks company for quite some time now and has been very useful. However, I would recommend that the work-life committee change employee behavior by improving employee recognition and employee involvement. Employee recognition refers to the timely acknowledgement of an individual’s behavior or efforts that compliments the goals and values of an organization (Bradler et al., 2016). Starbucks corporation can improve employee recognition by giving rewards and holidays to the best employees, provide development opportunities, and facilitate peer-to-peer recognition.
Employee involvement refers to the direct participation of employees to help fulfil the objectives of an organization (Bakotić & Rogošić, 2017). It entails allowing employees to apply their skills, expertise, and efforts in making important decisions in an organization (Bakotić & Rogošić, 2017). The Starbucks company can improve employee involvement by inviting employees to air their opinions concerning various issues, develop employer-employee relationships, and celebrate small achievements made by the employees. Both employee involvement and employee recognition have a significant relationship with the health well-being of employees and motivation. Motivated employees may, in turn, increase organizational performance and profitability.
Unit 3 IP
Starbucks company has problems keeping the health insurance costs affordable and has reached out to the work-life committee for information on how to handle the challenge. As a member of the committee, I have five suggestions that can help to improve the health and well-being of employees working in the company. They include washing of hands frequently, healthier eating, physical exercise, avoiding cigarette smoking, and avoiding alcohol intake.
Washing hands frequently is the most effective way to beat chronic and infectious diseases. The reason is that hands hygiene helps to prevent respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, and skin infections (Zivich et al., 2018). The Mediterranean diet recommends the intake of fruits, vegetables, potatoes, legumes, fish, and eggs (Zarrinpar et al., 2016). Specialists also advise people to stay within their daily calorie needs and take low-fat milk. Physical exercise can also help manage diseases and illnesses that negatively impact the cost of providing care to employees at Starbucks. Adults should do at least 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity in a week (Hoffmann et al., 2016). The regular physical exercise activities recommended include swimming, walking, jogging, and kegel exercises.
Cigarette smoking is responsible for the development of lung diseases such as COPD, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema (Osei et al., 2020; Ganguly et al., 2018). Cigarette smoking also increases the risk of lung cancer, stroke, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis development. Most of the conditions caused by cigarette smoking are terminal and expensive to treat. Starbucks should educate employees on the effects of cigarette smoking. Alcoholism is associated with memory lapses, vision impairment, and lack of coordination. It also causes high blood pressure, breast cancer, liver diseases, stroke, and heart diseases (Axley et al., 2019). Starbucks should, therefore, rehabilitate employees with alcohol use disorders.
Elements such as the sound, light, proximity, openness, density, quality of air may negatively affect the health and well-being of employees. The reason is that excess noise may cause hearing complications. Poor lighting in workplaces also affects employees’ visibility. Employees require to work in an environment with clean air to avoid respiratory illnesses such as asthma, lung cancer, and COPD.
Unit 4 IP
Efforts tailored towards a healthier environment at Starbucks can benefit employers, employees, and customers. It is important to note that a healthier environment can benefit all the stakeholders equally while others benefit specific groups. As earlier mentioned, companies promote a healthier work environment by empowering team members, prioritizing wellness, providing rewards and incentives, building trust, and building effective communication systems. A healthy working environment is characterized by seamless learning, hygiene, proper lighting, flexibility, recognition, and effective communication.
Promoting a healthier environment at Starbucks may help employers in a number of ways. First, it would result the rate of employee turnover. This means that employers will save both money and time spent during the recruitment process. Secondly, a healthier work environment would lower the rates of absenteeism at Starbucks. In other words, employees will not miss work over petty issues and this impacts the company’s productivity. Thirdly, a healthier work environment attracts better quality employees. Starbucks can in turn use its competent employees to compete in the market.
A healthy work environment can benefit employees at Starbucks by increasing productivity. This is because healthy employees feel better about their job and have the energy to accomplish tasks. In other words, a healthier work environment can influence a timely accomplishment of tasks at Starbucks Corporation. A healthy work environment can also increase job satisfaction and work engagement. Job satisfaction and work engagement influences a company’s productivity and profits.
A healthy work environment can benefit customers of Starbucks company in two main ways. One of the benefits is that customers gain a positive public image of the company. A good public image can improve the customers’ trust in Starbucks. Secondly, a healthy work environment can improve the quality of goods and services offered to customers, hence increased satisfaction.
Starbucks Company Profile
The story of Starbucks company began in 1971 with three men in a single store in the United States. As of 2018, Starbucks company had total assets worth $24.15 billion, total equity worth $1.16 billion, and 291,000 employees (Mayer, 2018). The headquarter of Starbucks is in 2401 Utah Avenue South, Seattle, Washington. The company offers products such as fresh-brewed coffee, espresso beverages, Iced Coffee, and Teavana, to mention a few. Starbucks company targets young consumers aged between 18 and 24. It also targets men and women aged between 25 and 44 (Mayer, 2018). The company also targets educated, white-collar professionals who generate an average income of $90,000 for the company (Mayer, 2018). The major assets of the company as stated in the annual report are plant and equipment, inventories, and cash and cash equivalents. Starbucks Corporation uses first in first out (FIFO) or last in fast out (LIFO) inventory management methods (Mayer, 2018). It also uses reverse account approach to estimate the level of shrinkage between physical inventory counts.
Starbucks company has for the longest time now been using reinforcement learning technology. That is the machine that uses machine learning to make complex and unpredictable decisions based on external feedback (Mayer, 2018). The company has a unique brand localization and store design that depict its level of innovation. The main competitors of Starbucks company include McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts (Mayer, 2018). Despite the stiff competition in the coffee market, Starbucks company continue to grow each day. The competitive advantage of the company is in product differentiation (Mayer, 2018). As of 2018, Starbucks had about 28,218 coffee houses located in different regions across the globe.
Unite 5 IP
Starbucks corporation has a good work environment compared to its competitors. However, there are recommendations that would help improve the workplace environment if adopted. One of the recommendations is that the corporation should conduct regular health education to employees and employers. Health education entails behavior and practices that promote, maintain, and restore health in individuals. With health education, employees of Starbucks Corporation can be equipped with knowledge and skills needed to improve their health, prevent diseases and illnesses, and reduce risks that come with poor health. That is important because a lack of knowledge influences most of the behaviors and unhealthy practices. Cigarette smoking and excess intake of alcohol behaviors, for instance, have been on the rise and costs organizations a great fortune. Education of staff will not only result in a healthier environment but also save on medical expenses that Starbucks Corporation could have otherwise incurred. Health education can help create awareness of infectious and chronic diseases. Employers and employees, therefore, can use the knowledge obtained from health education to prevent diseases such as blood-borne illnesses, Salmonella, measles, asthma, COPD, and arthritis. Read more
The efforts to improve the health education at Starbucks Corporation has both strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths of health education is that it reduces the prevalence rates of chronic illnesses, substance use disorders, and mental heal health disorders. Secondly, health education results in an informed workforce. In other words, health education increases awareness regarding conditions and the best practice and behaviors to prevent them. However, health education only provides knowledge-based interventions. In other words, health education does not go beyond knowledge dissemination. Additionally, provision of health education may be expensive to a company.
Secondly, the psychologists, employee assistance professionals, and human resource professionals at Starbucks company should focus on specific employee problems. It means that when working to improve the well-being of employees, they should consider the unique needs of each employee. The reason is that each employee has individual health needs. The professionals should stop assuming that the needs of employees are uniform. What this means is that the professionals should focus on the health needs of each employee at a time. Focusing on the unique needs of employees may improve the quality of outcomes. Additionally, this may increase the level employee satisfaction. However, this may exploit the vulnerability of employees as professionals may use the weaknesses of employees against them. Additionally, this may be time-consuming and expensive as Starbucks Corporation has many employees
Thirdly, the company should invite the opinions of customers regarding health and well-being. Customer feedback entails incorporating the ideas and information of the community regarding the company or the products and services it offers. This is crucial when a company is thinking of introducing a new product or service to the market. This helps to ensure that the product to be launched is consistent with the expectations of customers, meet their needs, and solve their problems. It is to enhance inclusivity and togetherness in the company’s decisions. Additionally, some of the company’s customers are specialists in various fields and can provide advice in their respective areas of expertise. Involvement may strengthen the relationship between Starbucks company and its customers. It may also compel the company to change various aspects of coffee that customers do not like. The feedback from previous assignments and customers can help to make informed decisions. That may, in turn, increase organizational performance.