21 ms·

Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

362 points by zvonimirs 4y ago

bennetthi 4y ago
I feel like there should be a word for this.
- dboreham 4y ago
  "UndercoverBoss"?
throw1234651234 4y ago
If this was not a PR move, but a desire to get a sense for work conditions, real problems, etc, it would not be publicized.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  Good luck keeping something like this secret. Also how else can you run a company if you don't understand what process can be improved and how?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > If this was not a PR move, but a desire to get a sense for work conditions, real problems, etc, it would not be publicized. And it wouldn't work. I don't think a lot of people would be comfortable sharing real complaints with the CEO who parachuted in for a single shift. It will probably end up being a bit of a Potemkin village situation. The shift will probably be filled up with the highest-motivated, most ass-kissing employees, whose focus will be keeping the CEO comfortable.
  - the_mar 4y ago
    Of course it is for PR, it would be really dumb to not publicize it. It would absolutely work in a sense. Of course the CEO will not get a real experience and of course no one will bring any real grievances to him. But the CEO will still get some exposure to day to day. It is still somewhat better than not doing it at all. It’s a good precedent to set and one can only hope more CEOs would follow
    - dachryn 4y ago
      you are underestimating the impact of programs like this. The CEO will quickly spot broken processes and inefficiencies. Ass kissing can't make up for business problems. Beyond that, by working in a different store, gets a feel on how generic the approach can be, and where they need local optimizations. The only think you are taking out of the consideration is toxic lower management and asshole colleagues, but that's not something I'd expect the CEO to fix directly himself. If anything he is just bored of the ass kissers and good news shows, and wants to regain a feel of reality
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        > The CEO will quickly spot broken processes and inefficiencies. They will quickly spot what they perceive to be broken processes and inefficiencies, but they don't have real experience of the actual work at that level to be able to safely move Chesterton's fence.
  - 988747 4y ago
    [dead]
- meken 4y ago
  How sure are you of that?
- brookst 4y ago
  If you really meant that, you wouldn’t have posted it publicly. I think that reasoning might have some flaws.
- Havoc 4y ago
  Could always be both
- pcurve 4y ago
  It would've been a better PR for them to have not publicized it. They really didn't need to, because people would find out anyway.
- adrianmonk 4y ago
  It can be both. If you have a better way to run your company, why not do it and also score a bonus PR win in the process?
- standardUser 4y ago
  If this is not solely a PR move I'd be genuinely worried about Starbucks leadership.
rideontime 4y ago
How about for a month per year? And they have to subsist solely on the wages earned from it.
- jstanley 4y ago
  Why would that be better? Wouldn't that leave him less time to do his actual work?
  - rychco 4y ago
    It would be better for the stated goal of understanding the culture & challenges of living as an actual barista at Starbucks, rather than just a publicity stunt.
  - gannonburgett 4y ago
    Sure. But it'd also give them a level of empathy it seems many CEOs lack. I'd say that's worth 1/12 of their work and, if anything, might make them a more efficient and truly understanding leader the remaining 11/12 of the year.
    - brookst 4y ago
      And just skip any major business meetings in that month? If you think he’s a bad CEO, you shouldn’t want him there at all. If you think he’s a good CEO you shouldn’t want him dropping his work for a month.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    He's a CEO of a major company, man. They don't have actual work. This would be the most productive month of his life.
    - dachryn 4y ago
      I was not expecting this Reddit level of comments on HN. Really hoping you are sarcastic.
josh_fyi 4y ago
Any employees at those shifts are going to be terrified...
- rullelito 4y ago
  That would probably be the safest place to work, can't fire anyone with the risk of bad PR.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > That would probably be the safest place to work, can't fire anyone with the risk of bad PR. Why? Just as long as they don't fire someone on the spot, live on social media, I'm sure their PR team can handle it. E.g. make a statement "Joe Schmoe had persistent performance issues and was fired a month after the CEO visit, there's no connection to the CEO."
    - brvsft 4y ago
      Why even make any statement? That would seem more suspicious to me.
- brookst 4y ago
  Depends on personality. Some will be excited to give him an earful about everything that makes their job difficult. “And the handles on the carafes! You see this injection molding seam? You see where it is when I pick up the carafe for tbe 500th time today? You see these callouses? You’re not going to have callouses, you’re going to have blisters! Like everyone in the first week! And the packaging on these cups! You see this…”
mc32 4y ago
Ahhh “undercover boss” except not under cover. But seriously, unless the whole shop is staffed by management, to get a taste of the job on some rotation, they will mostly just get in the way of front line people. In high school I hated, hated it when a boss would come in and do work. It just stunk the atmosphere.
TheDesolate0 4y ago
[dead]
whack 4y ago
I recall Amazon used to do something similar. Executives would sometimes take customer service shifts. The goal isn't PR or worker morale - most people see through stunts like that. The real goal is to help leaders better understand their product, its problems, and customer frustrations.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I think a week in warehouse might do good for them. Or as delivery driving...
  - wodenokoto 4y ago
    I worked at a small (in Amazon scale - still the largest in the country) home grocery delivery service and everyone pre corona had to spend their 2 first weeks in the warehouse. Everyone had done it, including managers and c-level
    - richiebful1 4y ago
      I figure that's a much better place to work than an Amazon warehouse then?
      - kube-system 4y ago
        The couple of people I personally know that have worked at Amazon warehouses says they're pretty well ran in comparison to other warehouses. And I know personally that my experience working in a small-business warehouse back when I was young was absolutely garbage. Smaller businesses rarely get any news coverage, but I worked in a warehouse with zero ventilation, no safety training, no safety equipment, nobody trained in logistics, broken and improper lifting equipment, etc. This is par for the course at a workplace with zero outside scrutiny. Amazon warehouses are at least run by professionals in logistics, have proper safety procedures, equipment, training, etc. As I understand, the 'bad' part is the volume. But at the end of the day, even a well-run warehouse job is a warehouse job. It is physical work.
  - 4y ago
jaysinn_420 4y ago
highest paid barista ever
- criddell 4y ago
  It should be a shift swap. He works as a barista for barista pay and the person he takes the shift from should be CEO for a day for CEO pay. Business Insider says[1] the new CEO's compensation is something like $28 million, so the barista should get around $115k for the day's work. Maybe then both parties will come to realize whether or not the 3 orders of magnitude difference in pay is warranted. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-ceo-salary-laxman-narasimhan-pay-signing-bonus-equity-2023-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-ceo-salary-laxman-...
  - whiterace1488 4y ago
    [dead]
    - criddell 4y ago
      I'm saying if the CEO wants to work as a barista then they should find a barista that wants to see what the CEO job is like and swap jobs and pay for a day. I doubt either party will be particularly good at the other person's job, but that's not really the point of the exercise. Both would get a glimpse of the other person's working life.
swader999 4y ago
It would be better to put the whole executive together into a location for two weeks.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  yeah, one day is not going to cut it. Full immersion requires a lot more time. Also with a single day at once location, you risk being seen as "the special guest" and treated differently, while this kind of thing would smooth out over the course of several weeks.
  - brvsft 4y ago
    That's way too much time. More than enough to allow some disgruntled workers to plan out and execute an assassination of the CEO.
    - swader999 4y ago
      You're not supposed to say that part out loud.
queens_ridge 4y ago
I used to work in tech for a large retail company and when you joined the company you had to work 3 days straight at one of the stores. Honestly it was brutal and they put me to work. It made me thankful to work at the corporate office if anything.
- screwturner68 4y ago
  Try a couple of months at the wage they pay those poor bastards. That's the thing about "having to work the floor". If I'm the CEO, I'm making $10MM a year and frankly busting ass for 4 whole hours at $5000/h isn't a big deal. It's a completely different experience when you have to bust ass all week at $8/h
tiedieconderoga 4y ago
It's a nice gesture, but this sort of ear-to-the-ground work is something that everyone over a VP level should be doing in such a high-touch customer-facing business. When it's just the CEO for one day a month...it's like when you see a frontpage news article declaring that your governor recently undertook a choreographed ride on the local subway to better understand their constituents' public transit concerns. Instead of making them seem relatable and trustworthy, it highlights how grossly out of touch they are.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  One shift a month means that the CEO will have a much better feel for the customer environment and not be disconnected. I hope he rotates through a few different stores, though. Otherwise, he may become myopic to the quirks of one particular location.
  - palijer 4y ago
    Once when I was working our incoming phone support a tech accidentally added our CEO's office number to the round robin system for incoming support calls. CEO fielded 4 calls before he figured out what happened. No idea if he solved the problems or not. I kinda dreamt since that day that any product managers would work some time taking support calls for their products and it'd be a better world because they'd realise all the issues we've been raising about their product are real.... But instead we were just lowly support folks who didn't know about product development and they continued to be "agile"
  - blululu 4y ago
    A little bit of knowledge can be less than useless. It gives the impression of understanding while passing over the harsher realities. The way that such a move is enacted matters. Is this shift scheduled on a random Saturday/Sunday with ~48 hours notice. Does the shift last 8 hours? Does his replacement randomly show up 30 minutes late and he needs to work an extra 30 minutes with zero notice? Does he need to open the shop bright and early after closing the night before? If the CEO is insulated from these rather common experiences then the exercise masks the problems with a veneer of understanding.
kgwxd 4y ago
Time to go see an audiologists.
zug_zug 4y ago
This is only going to be remotely effective if the workers aren't aware he's CEO. Heck even the franchise-owner is going to have the store cleaned probably, ask his friends to come by and compliment the store.
- outime 4y ago
  They could do something like in Undercover Boss [1] so that employees (allegedly) don't know the person working there is the CEO. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Boss_(British_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Boss_(British_TV_se...
- prottog 4y ago
  Starbucks doesn't franchise, at least in the US. Though you will find "licensed" stores in airports and such.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Yeah, but don't just let him work in the Seattle suburbs, drop him in random Starbucks around America. Let him work a shift in St. Louis.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  St Louis Starbucks are pretty nice, they aren’t putting stores in bad areas of the city.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
Not sure how well this will work, other than as a PR stunt. If he's serious about this, he should go in, in disguise, without anyone at the store knowing who he is (including top management).
jrm4 4y ago
Oh, the cynicism. I'm not exactly sure how this will go down for Starbucks per se, maybe it is PR-ish -- but to pull the camera back a bit, I think it would be tremendously helpful to normalize this idea everywhere, even if it may not always work out perfectly.
- brvsft 4y ago
  Yeah, I don't see the big deal. He's the new CEO and appears to be setting the tone, informing people of one of his first efforts. Stating it publicly seems uncontroversial for a business with publicly-traded stock. I also don't see it as some veiled attempt to act like he's trying to empathize with every aspect of the workers' lives. Not that a lot of people are suggesting this, but some are, and it seems like an incorrect impulse to assume that. As the new CEO, he wants to see the operating conditions of their stores, where they make most of their money. Seems like a decent idea to me, and is presumably different from what the previous CEO was doing.
- comte7092 4y ago
  I used to work in hospitality. One of the higher ups had worked his way up from the bottom of the totem pole. He would come and work the frontline and the employees were generally appreciative. One of his subordinates followed his lead - except he had no idea what he was doing. He was slow, got in people’s way, and did things no frontline employee would ever be allowed to do - just give stuff away constantly. At the end of the day, the CEO isn’t ever going to be under the same pressure or constraints as a normal employee. This is extremely likely to just end up being a vanity project.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >... I think it would be tremendously helpful to normalize this idea everywhere, even if it may not always work out perfectly. It's all dependent upon the intent of the CEO or person coming in and doing the work. Just as an anecdote, I have seen too many times where a superior comes in with the intent of doing the work to prove it can be done better, rather than to understand the realities of what employees are dealing with, and the results are negative. I frequently had a COO who would come to my warehouse, get on the front line with processing equipment (just as an aside, this was an ITAD company processing end-of-life IT equipment for data sanitization and remarketing, so it's tech-related), and take a cavalier, "SEE! I could go through ALL of that in X amount of minutes! I don't understand why people can't move fast enough blah, blah, blah." What he never realized is that he didn't do all the work. He'd capture only what he looked at in the system, never put anything away, and left a massive pile of work, and garbage, behind him that my team always had to clean up. He wouldn't take the time to do the rest of the work that the team has to do themselves day in and day out. He half-assed it and berated us at the end, and I could never get him to understand this. It's not that it "didn't always work out perfectly", it's that it made morale plummet every single time it happened. So yeah, I share your sentiment, but to a point - it's reliant upon the person diving in to keep an open mind and actually give a shit about it instead of just using it as a, "Look at me, I'm a man of the people!" opportunity.
roflchoppa 4y ago
The only way things like this really work is by not giving any heads up to the store or the store management. Otherwise store management spends a huge amount of time trying to tidy up before “corporate” comes by. At least that was my experience when things like this happened at the fruit stand.
- MadSudaca 4y ago
  My experience at the lemonade stand have been similar.
  - bannedbybros 4y ago
    [dead]
- thrdbndndn 4y ago
  Assuming he actually works the whole shift, he still can experience what works as a barista in his company is like (workload, how to deal with customers assuming they don't recognize him) somewhat truthfully. I think it's worth something.
  - angry_moose 4y ago
    First line: Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations. Something tells me it'll be something like 1-5pm; not the 7am rush.
    - badwolf 4y ago
      I've mixed feelings. Many probably wouldn't want the semi-dead weight of big executive screwing up the morning rush.
      - sebzim4500 4y ago
        I haven't worked retail, I know its unpleasant but is there really that much skill to it?
kieckerjan 4y ago
I once took a cab in the middle of the night. The cabby was a elderly gentleman who did not seem to know his way around very well. It was a long ride so we got talking. Turned out he was the new boss of the company (a fairly big company, lots of cars) who wanted to get to know the circumstances under which his drivers worked. He had been working the night shift for a couple of weeks.
- conductr 4y ago
  I hope you told him “nice chat, but under normal circumstances I’d be pretty upset that you took me on a joy ride costing me extra time and money.”
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Hope they make him clean the toilets
diebeforei485 4y ago
This is good. But it should be unannounced. He should just show up and work.
- stagger87 4y ago
  The marketing department will not allow that to happen.
  - Arrath 4y ago
    This is good, right? Then a team of <trolls/activists> can all arrive at the same time and order a big pile of 'secret menu' 19-ingredient monstrosities from the CEO.
  - dpflan 4y ago
    Social Media viral coefficient may have been higher with a quieter announcement and the CEO just showing up leverage social media managers.
  - cushychicken 4y ago
    Any CEO doing this for the right reasons - I.e., to help ensure the product is good - would whip the marketing department right into shape and tell them to keep a lid on it.
    - babypuncher 4y ago
      In this case, the marketing department was not involved, at least publicly. CNBC is reporting this from an internal email they got their hands on.
- jonas21 4y ago
  Part of the reason to do this is for employees to know that the CEO understands their job and their concerns. The vast majority of employees will not be working at a store the CEO visits, so it makes sense to announce it internally. It sounds like that's what they did, and CNBC got a hold of that email.
- 4y ago
jeremy_wiebe 4y ago
So basically an episode of the show Undercover Boss? https://www.cbs.com/shows/undercover_boss/ https://www.cbs.com/shows/undercover_boss/
aaomidi 4y ago
Lemme know which store so I can avoid it.
Kye 4y ago
It's a noble idea, but it's not enough to give someone who's already wealthy beyond imagination a sense of the precarity of people who have to work to live. That's the real problem: people with all the power making decisions that impact people in circumstances they can't imagine even if they might have experienced something that vaguely resembles it 20 or 40 years before. No matter what he does, he knows he gets go to home to a safe place with plenty to eat at the end of the day. You can't simulate the effect of the lack of that certainty on someone's work.
ethicalsmacker 4y ago
Ah yes, the CEO is slumming it. I would be more impressed if he accepted cafe pay for one month instead.
- proee 4y ago
  The CEO is probably independently wealthy, so shutting off his pay for one month does nothing. I think this is a great opportunity to get to know what it's like to work at this level, the type of people, etc. If this person has a heart, it should enable good changes in the company based on bottom-up feedback.
  - maximinus_thrax 4y ago
    In the post Reagan era, a CEO with a heart is not going to be CEO for long.
elijaht 4y ago
This is cool. IIRC Doordash has a similar policy for at least rank and file employees. I think it’s a great way to understand aspects of a business
captnFwiffo 4y ago
[dead]
moi2388 4y ago
Fantastic. Now stop sourcing 1% of your coffee unethically (as per your statement that 99% of your coffee is ethically sourced)
- adrusi 4y ago
  I don’t know the details around this, but it seems like it would be near impossible to get 100% ethical sourcing, because no matter how good your process of vetting suppliers is, at Starbucks scale, you’re going to get fraud. A shady supplier just needs to bribe or blackmail one of your procurement staff to look the other way.
digitcatphd 4y ago
I know things are bad in the economy but dang..
riffic 4y ago
walking the Gemba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemba
daedalus_j 4y ago
Ron Johnson used to do this when he headed Apple retail. Would just go into a store totally undercover to the customers (obviously staff would recognize him) and work for a bit. Occasionally fairly major changes, both to the staff side and to the customer experience, were made based on his visits. I don't recall ever seeing a press announcement about it. Saying you're doing it to win brownie points sure makes it seem inauthentic. Then again maybe it's better this way than leaking it to a reporter and pretending that it was discovered organically. Guess we'll have to wait and see if anything actually comes out of it to know if it's just a stunt, but I'd put my money on it.
- parker_mountain 4y ago
  > Occasionally fairly major changes like what? I'm curious. There's nothing that shows the flaws of a process like running it yourself.
  - stcroixx 4y ago
    Probably better to just listen to the people that do it all day than to think you pop in as an outsider and have some special insight.
    - xeromal 4y ago
      Any human in the world will believe someone if they experience for themselves. Sometimes it's necessary.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      People need performance and narrative. Spending one day a month so you can say to fellow executives "I actually went and touched the problem, we need to fix it" and so employees can say to each other "he actually came and touched the problem, he must be working on fixing it" has real value. Actually learning about the problem and coming up with a solution is best done by listening to the people like you said, but there's a role for the other thing too.
system16 4y ago
The reverse of this: in my early days in tech support for a major router manufacturer, we were told the CEO would occasionally call in posing as a customer, and agents had been fired for being rude or offering poor support. To this day I don't know if it was true or not, but it scared enough people to think Big Brother was always watching.
mavu 4y ago
It's a nice gimmick that gives some positive press coverage. Only in a very dysfunctional company will this lead to any meaningfull improvement.
nico 4y ago
Maybe he’s scared of AI and starting to train on skills that are harder to replace by computer, at least in the short term.
fykem 4y ago
[flagged]
- Julesman 4y ago
  Definitely a PR move. But I figure it's about implying that the work isn't that hard and that the reasons for unionization are overblown. In other words, the work is easy so they don't need a raise. Some BS like that.
- nr2x 4y ago
  Yuuuuuup, this dude is clearly terrified of unionization.
- JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  Everything about the Starbucks CEO shift up is because of unionization. Old CEO didn't want to face congress, now if he still has to, he can simply say, "I don't speak for Starbucks". Schultz is a freaking COWARD. Now this. It's clearly a PR stunt to show other suits that the CEO "cares". But it's really to keep pushing their thumb down on the union busting button.
tullianus 4y ago
SpaceX (at least in my experience) requires design and manufacturing engineers to spend shifts on the production line to make sure there isn't low-hanging fruit in improving either the design or the manufacturing flow. If your manager hears complaints from the production team and you haven't spent some shifts on the floor getting to know the issue personally, you won't be long for the job.
dehrmann 4y ago
IIRC, Starbucks has a store at their HQ. Hopefully it's not that one.
robotburrito 4y ago
They should pick a barista to be CEO for one day a month.
danesparza 4y ago
All of the execs should have to do this. Creating a vested interest in better working conditions and a better customer experience is good for everybody.
msla 4y ago
Now where have I heard this before... We few, we happy few, we band of baristas; For any to-day that boils a brew with me Shall be my bestie; be they ne'er so vile, This day shall glow up their selfie post; And customers in Bed-Stuy now a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their socials cheap whiles any speaks That pulled with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
JohnFen 4y ago
I'm not sure I see the point of this, unless it's just for PR. Working a half day per month will tell you very little of importance in any workplace. And, if you're the CEO of the company and all of the other employees (and especially management) knows you're the CEO, working that half day will tell you exactly nothing.
- zachthewf 4y ago
  As long as the customers don't know, I can imagine it might help.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Yeah, I guess I imagined he was looking for a whole-picture understanding, not just the customer interactions. But I suppose I was mistaken.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    A customer is going to get banned from all starbucks on his very first shift for being rude.
- efsavage 4y ago
  I think you'd be surprised what even a little manufactured exposure can do. It doesn't need to be undercover. At almost every company I've worked at that asks for feedback I recommend some version of this. Some things I think you could learn in only a few hours at a Starbucks: * "Wow that machine is a pain in the ass to use" * "3 customers got angry at me because ____" * "Making ___ the way Jane showed me was much easier than the training" * "I hate it when customers pay using ____"
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Sure, there are a few things. That's why I qualified my statement. But they're necessarily going to be minor things, not the larger persistent problems that only become clear once you've spent some real time working.
gooseyman 4y ago
Working a shift is great. While co-workers may act different, most customers won't. Now... CEOs with "push-button menu option" based call centers under them should be mandated to call monthly and complete some task.
linker3000 4y ago
This is laudable, and it will be good if it had a return on investment by identifying opportunities for improvement. On a personal level, however, it would only work for me if Mr Narasimhan decided he didn't like the taste of the coffee and changed it; I haven't visited a Starbucks in decades because I find their brew quite unpleasant!
pipeline_peak 4y ago
What an insult to the actual food service workers. Complete waste of time that could be better spent improving their conditions.
bluedino 4y ago
I worked for a large tier 1 automotive supplier where every new hire, whether you were an executive, salesperson, whatever, had to work the assembly line for their first two weeks.
dghughes 4y ago
It's a good idea PR or not. Seeing employee stress is good since just because work is being done doesn't mean the employees are able to do it effortlessly. Stress on employees I think is overlooked as long as the work is done. Or rather the employee stress isn't noticed since it's not measured or even thought about.
btbuildem 4y ago
Ideally, he gets reamed by some irate customers and gets to experience what the staff do on the daily.
ivansmf 4y ago
Allegedly Costco has a policy of making their white collar folks work on the floor of their stores and rotate positions before getting to the office, same with McDonalds. I would love to hear from someone with first hand experience to confirm or correct my impression. I did confirm that Costco gives good benefits and decent pay for all their automotive section employees, and since then I only buy tires there (since 2000) for that very reason. Every time I visit I reconfirm that is the case. It is not much in the great scheme of things, but it is an honest effort to buy from good employers.
chankstein38 4y ago
Ah cool. One day a month where everyone has to be on their best behavior and everything has to work perfectly to impress the CEO who will, inevitably, not gain anything from the experience except the ability to pass judgement on employees that have to deal with the struggles of this job every day for like 1/100th of his pay.
brodouevencode 4y ago
Chick-fil-A CEOs have been doing this (if not more frequent) since inception
- elmer007 4y ago
  I'm not familiar with the C-suite level, but I can confirm that my local CFA's operator is routinely working various positions at his store. When he isn't, he's sitting at a table working on paperwork. I'm there a lot (some would say too much, but I wholeheartedly disagree!), and it's odd to pass through without seeing him. He works the register, he takes orders in the drive through, he directs traffic in the parking lot, he carries orders out-- everything. I'm certain that he's done shifts in the kitchen as well, just that I couldn't seem him to know. Just today, I went into the restroom to wash my hands and he was cleaning the stall.
zapdrive 4y ago
Does he have a degrees in gender studies?
neilv 4y ago
Talking with the people on the ground is generally a great idea. I first heard of Hewlett-Packard doing this. As can having execs be familiar with the boots on the ground business, so it's not just numbers abstractions. Issuing a press release looks like a different or additional goal. Such as customer/investor PR for the company, internal messaging (reaching vast low-level employees via public news outlets), or personal brand.
maximinus_thrax 4y ago
My inner cynic screams that the cafes will temporarily become Potemkin villages, with fake customers, photo ops and everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village
Diederich 4y ago
I worked at the WalMart home office in Bentonville, Arkansas for about 13 years, the whole time in Information Systems, salaried. For most of that time, there was something called 'store appreciation', around November, where everybody salaried had to travel to a WalMart store and work a full day there. And it had to be a Saturday, in addition to the normal Monday-Friday. Most of my peers really complained about it, and it was kind of a pain in the ass, but it was usually illuminating and interesting. More than once, my experience there directly illuminated stuff I was working on or could work on back in tech land. Inspired by that, I started to strongly encourage everyone on my team to spend a day in the NOC or Field Support (the two help desks we supported more than others) once a quarter or so. Again, a lot of complaining but most of the time we'd come back with some really useful insights. EDIT: To be clear, 'everyone salaried' definitely included all of the executives, who would make a big deal out of it during big meetings, and often talk about their own personal findings. It went back to a very "in the store, hands on" style from the founder, Sam Walton.
standardUser 4y ago
This kind of stunt is right up there with "pizza parties" except unlike pizza parties, which only insult your workers, this will also completely stress them out for a day!
twawaaay 4y ago
As it should be. Nothing worse than a CEO who does not understand how their business works at the lowest level. Unless this somehow does not matter for business profitability or future (which there are examples of but much less than many people would think). In my experience, upper management has this problem of getting accurate information. This happens for many reasons and is really, really, really hard to fix. It usually requires conscious, serious and sustained effort from the manager demonstrating his/her people that it is safe to bring information whether good or bad. I bet the a shift once a month is good investment of time as long as he won't be placed in a bubble -- a model Starbucks location where everything works perfectly because the CEO works there once a month.
- mataug 4y ago
  I really hope he picks a random Starbucks location across various cities.
  - twawaaay 4y ago
    I know people behave very differently when within hearing distance of a higher up. Now imagine you are the highest one... every person you meet, every day, is constantly thinking hard about filtering what they are telling you. It does not matter if you pick random locations, people will still modify what they are saying when they see you. But it helps a bit. There is higher chance you will finally meet some people who are not afraid to tell the truth. There is also chance you will start seeing some patterns. It is probable that managers will clean up a lot of stuff when they suddenly get to know about a visitation, but they won't clean up everything and you will get at least some glimpses. Visit enough restaurants enough times and glimpses may form an image of reality.
  - maxk42 4y ago
    I think it would be better if he stuck to one. That way employees might over time become comfortable enough to voice their concerns to him. A one-time visit would feel more like an inspection than anything else and everyone would be on their best behavior.
imroot 4y ago
When I worked retail tech, I would find opportunities to go to the store to figure out what the pain points were for our hourly associates, and found time to work on getting those problems removed or reduced: happier workers equal more sales.
nektro 4y ago
> Starbucks CEO says he’ll work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month > Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations. contradiction in the first sentence. doesnt leave this stunt in good light
- safeimp 4y ago
  What’s the contradiction? I did a quick search and see a Starbucks shift consists of: > Evening shifts are around 3pm - 7pm or 4pm - 8pm. Morning Shifts 4 a.m. - 1 p.m. Midday Shifts 8 a.m. - 4 p.m
acomjean 4y ago
There was a Roger Moore show "TV NATION" where he challenged CEOs to do things with their products. "Format a Floppy" was one. The only one who took him up was the ford CEO who did an oil change. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Nation
- slim 4y ago
  Michael Moore
fvold 4y ago
I guess there is no PR wins in just listening to the floor-level employees, then?
meghan_rain 4y ago
Putin should fight one day in Bachmut and maybe some problems the world is facing right now wohld solve themselves :-)
Pigalowda 4y ago
I’m sure the regular employees will love enduring an entire day dedicated to the sociopath’s dog and pony show. The CEO should just go work in a coffee field for a day. What an ass
ahoy 4y ago
Can you imagine how annoying it would be to be one of the bariastas working when Schultz shows up and is just in your way for 4 hours?
- everly 4y ago
  Just FYI they got a new CEO
telecuda 4y ago
Ask to be put on frontline email/phone customer support for your product a few times a year. Hearing problems/complaints directly from the voice of the customer, then having to explain a sometimes cumbersome workaround to solve them, is invaluable. Plus you buy goodwill with your support team for walking a day in their shoes.
dahwolf 4y ago
One of my recurring revenge-porn dreams is as follow. I'm the owner (so not CEO) of a massive multinational. I'm mysterious and not really publicly known. The actual CEO is the public face. Next, I apply for a role in one of the branches, say a local sysadmin, get the job and start working there. I do my job, intentionally fuck up a few times, and take note of any dysfunction in the organization. There's lots, management are bullies. Fast forward a few months and at the weekly all hands meeting, it is me sitting at the head of the table. The local manager aggressively insists that I move, but I remain seated. He gets security involved but security does nothing. He tells me I'm fired but I don't blink. As the dust settles, I open the meeting and immediately fire all of management, whom are physically thrown out. Next, I give all staff a raise and do something nice and personal for each of them. Everybody claps. Then I wake up from the cat sitting on my face.
- pkaye 4y ago
  Isn't that the premise of the Undercover Boss show?
  - dahwolf 4y ago
    No, my story is much better. Undercover Boss doesn't fire anybody as far as I know. The premise of Undercover Boss is a company that is starving their employees. To distract from this awkward reality, the Undercover Boss picks an employee that is double-starving, say a single mother. And then radically improves her life. Everybody claps and is in tears not realizing that everybody else continues to be fucked. Not my approach. I achieve total justice.
    - elliotto 4y ago
      This is a great description of all feel good American media
      - dahwolf 4y ago
        I would complete the description by mentioning that the one employee that was helped probably had to return whatever help was given as it was just for TV. They can keep their 20% discount though on the after-work course "5 ways to financial success" so that personal issues stop disrupting productivity.
karaterobot 4y ago
I know there are companies that make everybody (PMs, engineers, whatever) take a turn doing customer support. This sounds a bit like that: make people who are normally at a distance from the actual customers and their needs get a face full of it. I've spent a lot of time building software for people who aren't me, largely in domains where the users are experts in something I've never done. Even though I'm not a CEO, and this would be more of a lateral move on the org chart, I've always really wanted to actually spend a couple weeks just doing some version of their jobs instead of mine. I think it would be worth several years of just asking them questions about what they need.
xutopia 4y ago
Except he'll be paid 100 times more an hour to do so.
Sherl 4y ago
Higher ups in Toyota used to have this. Where if you join Toyota even as GM/VP, you would assemble the cars for a week as part of your induction into culture.
awad 4y ago
I am not sure if HN was always like this or something changed over time, but there is clearly no winning here/there's always a critic.
eek2121 4y ago
Let me know when he loses access to his credit lines and general net worth during the period when he works, then get back to me. All these folks are so out of touch with reality.
8bitsrule 4y ago
Getting to a working store will be hard if he's in Seattle, considering how many stores they've shut down in/near downtown Seattle in the past couple of years. Maybe he'll be flying to stores in the Caribbean region. Article sez he 'plans to work a shift', then later sez 'he'll work a half day every month'. So I guess they mean a corporate shift?
black_13 4y ago
[dead]

362 points by zvonimirs 4y ago

bennetthi 4y ago

I feel like there should be a word for this.

dboreham 4y ago
"UndercoverBoss"?

throw1234651234 4y ago

If this was not a PR move, but a desire to get a sense for work conditions, real problems, etc, it would not be publicized.

xiphias2 4y ago
Good luck keeping something like this secret. Also how else can you run a company if you don't understand what process can be improved and how?
tablespoon 4y ago
> If this was not a PR move, but a desire to get a sense for work conditions, real problems, etc, it would not be publicized. And it wouldn't work. I don't think a lot of people would be comfortable sharing real complaints with the CEO who parachuted in for a single shift. It will probably end up being a bit of a Potemkin village situation. The shift will probably be filled up with the highest-motivated, most ass-kissing employees, whose focus will be keeping the CEO comfortable.
- the_mar 4y ago
  Of course it is for PR, it would be really dumb to not publicize it. It would absolutely work in a sense. Of course the CEO will not get a real experience and of course no one will bring any real grievances to him. But the CEO will still get some exposure to day to day. It is still somewhat better than not doing it at all. It’s a good precedent to set and one can only hope more CEOs would follow
  - dachryn 4y ago
    you are underestimating the impact of programs like this. The CEO will quickly spot broken processes and inefficiencies. Ass kissing can't make up for business problems. Beyond that, by working in a different store, gets a feel on how generic the approach can be, and where they need local optimizations. The only think you are taking out of the consideration is toxic lower management and asshole colleagues, but that's not something I'd expect the CEO to fix directly himself. If anything he is just bored of the ass kissers and good news shows, and wants to regain a feel of reality
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
      > The CEO will quickly spot broken processes and inefficiencies. They will quickly spot what they perceive to be broken processes and inefficiencies, but they don't have real experience of the actual work at that level to be able to safely move Chesterton's fence.
- 988747 4y ago
  [dead]
meken 4y ago
How sure are you of that?
brookst 4y ago
If you really meant that, you wouldn’t have posted it publicly. I think that reasoning might have some flaws.
Havoc 4y ago
Could always be both
pcurve 4y ago
It would've been a better PR for them to have not publicized it. They really didn't need to, because people would find out anyway.
adrianmonk 4y ago
It can be both. If you have a better way to run your company, why not do it and also score a bonus PR win in the process?
standardUser 4y ago
If this is not solely a PR move I'd be genuinely worried about Starbucks leadership.

rideontime 4y ago

How about for a month per year? And they have to subsist solely on the wages earned from it.

jstanley 4y ago
Why would that be better? Wouldn't that leave him less time to do his actual work?
- rychco 4y ago
  It would be better for the stated goal of understanding the culture & challenges of living as an actual barista at Starbucks, rather than just a publicity stunt.
- gannonburgett 4y ago
  Sure. But it'd also give them a level of empathy it seems many CEOs lack. I'd say that's worth 1/12 of their work and, if anything, might make them a more efficient and truly understanding leader the remaining 11/12 of the year.
  - brookst 4y ago
    And just skip any major business meetings in that month? If you think he’s a bad CEO, you shouldn’t want him there at all. If you think he’s a good CEO you shouldn’t want him dropping his work for a month.
- coldpie 4y ago
  He's a CEO of a major company, man. They don't have actual work. This would be the most productive month of his life.
  - dachryn 4y ago
    I was not expecting this Reddit level of comments on HN. Really hoping you are sarcastic.

josh_fyi 4y ago

Any employees at those shifts are going to be terrified...

rullelito 4y ago
That would probably be the safest place to work, can't fire anyone with the risk of bad PR.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > That would probably be the safest place to work, can't fire anyone with the risk of bad PR. Why? Just as long as they don't fire someone on the spot, live on social media, I'm sure their PR team can handle it. E.g. make a statement "Joe Schmoe had persistent performance issues and was fired a month after the CEO visit, there's no connection to the CEO."
  - brvsft 4y ago
    Why even make any statement? That would seem more suspicious to me.
brookst 4y ago
Depends on personality. Some will be excited to give him an earful about everything that makes their job difficult. “And the handles on the carafes! You see this injection molding seam? You see where it is when I pick up the carafe for tbe 500th time today? You see these callouses? You’re not going to have callouses, you’re going to have blisters! Like everyone in the first week! And the packaging on these cups! You see this…”

mc32 4y ago

Ahhh “undercover boss” except not under cover. But seriously, unless the whole shop is staffed by management, to get a taste of the job on some rotation, they will mostly just get in the way of front line people. In high school I hated, hated it when a boss would come in and do work. It just stunk the atmosphere.

TheDesolate0 4y ago

[dead]

whack 4y ago

I recall Amazon used to do something similar. Executives would sometimes take customer service shifts. The goal isn't PR or worker morale - most people see through stunts like that. The real goal is to help leaders better understand their product, its problems, and customer frustrations.

Ekaros 4y ago
I think a week in warehouse might do good for them. Or as delivery driving...
- wodenokoto 4y ago
  I worked at a small (in Amazon scale - still the largest in the country) home grocery delivery service and everyone pre corona had to spend their 2 first weeks in the warehouse. Everyone had done it, including managers and c-level
  - richiebful1 4y ago
    I figure that's a much better place to work than an Amazon warehouse then?
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The couple of people I personally know that have worked at Amazon warehouses says they're pretty well ran in comparison to other warehouses. And I know personally that my experience working in a small-business warehouse back when I was young was absolutely garbage. Smaller businesses rarely get any news coverage, but I worked in a warehouse with zero ventilation, no safety training, no safety equipment, nobody trained in logistics, broken and improper lifting equipment, etc. This is par for the course at a workplace with zero outside scrutiny. Amazon warehouses are at least run by professionals in logistics, have proper safety procedures, equipment, training, etc. As I understand, the 'bad' part is the volume. But at the end of the day, even a well-run warehouse job is a warehouse job. It is physical work.
- 4y ago

jaysinn_420 4y ago

highest paid barista ever

criddell 4y ago
It should be a shift swap. He works as a barista for barista pay and the person he takes the shift from should be CEO for a day for CEO pay. Business Insider says[1] the new CEO's compensation is something like $28 million, so the barista should get around $115k for the day's work. Maybe then both parties will come to realize whether or not the 3 orders of magnitude difference in pay is warranted. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-ceo-salary-laxman-narasimhan-pay-signing-bonus-equity-2023-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-ceo-salary-laxman-...
- whiterace1488 4y ago
  [dead]
  - criddell 4y ago
    I'm saying if the CEO wants to work as a barista then they should find a barista that wants to see what the CEO job is like and swap jobs and pay for a day. I doubt either party will be particularly good at the other person's job, but that's not really the point of the exercise. Both would get a glimpse of the other person's working life.

swader999 4y ago

It would be better to put the whole executive together into a location for two weeks.

ekianjo 4y ago
yeah, one day is not going to cut it. Full immersion requires a lot more time. Also with a single day at once location, you risk being seen as "the special guest" and treated differently, while this kind of thing would smooth out over the course of several weeks.
- brvsft 4y ago
  That's way too much time. More than enough to allow some disgruntled workers to plan out and execute an assassination of the CEO.
  - swader999 4y ago
    You're not supposed to say that part out loud.

queens_ridge 4y ago

I used to work in tech for a large retail company and when you joined the company you had to work 3 days straight at one of the stores. Honestly it was brutal and they put me to work. It made me thankful to work at the corporate office if anything.

screwturner68 4y ago
Try a couple of months at the wage they pay those poor bastards. That's the thing about "having to work the floor". If I'm the CEO, I'm making $10MM a year and frankly busting ass for 4 whole hours at $5000/h isn't a big deal. It's a completely different experience when you have to bust ass all week at $8/h

tiedieconderoga 4y ago

It's a nice gesture, but this sort of ear-to-the-ground work is something that everyone over a VP level should be doing in such a high-touch customer-facing business. When it's just the CEO for one day a month...it's like when you see a frontpage news article declaring that your governor recently undertook a choreographed ride on the local subway to better understand their constituents' public transit concerns. Instead of making them seem relatable and trustworthy, it highlights how grossly out of touch they are.

gwbas1c 4y ago
One shift a month means that the CEO will have a much better feel for the customer environment and not be disconnected. I hope he rotates through a few different stores, though. Otherwise, he may become myopic to the quirks of one particular location.
- palijer 4y ago
  Once when I was working our incoming phone support a tech accidentally added our CEO's office number to the round robin system for incoming support calls. CEO fielded 4 calls before he figured out what happened. No idea if he solved the problems or not. I kinda dreamt since that day that any product managers would work some time taking support calls for their products and it'd be a better world because they'd realise all the issues we've been raising about their product are real.... But instead we were just lowly support folks who didn't know about product development and they continued to be "agile"
- blululu 4y ago
  A little bit of knowledge can be less than useless. It gives the impression of understanding while passing over the harsher realities. The way that such a move is enacted matters. Is this shift scheduled on a random Saturday/Sunday with ~48 hours notice. Does the shift last 8 hours? Does his replacement randomly show up 30 minutes late and he needs to work an extra 30 minutes with zero notice? Does he need to open the shop bright and early after closing the night before? If the CEO is insulated from these rather common experiences then the exercise masks the problems with a veneer of understanding.

kgwxd 4y ago

Time to go see an audiologists.

zug_zug 4y ago

This is only going to be remotely effective if the workers aren't aware he's CEO. Heck even the franchise-owner is going to have the store cleaned probably, ask his friends to come by and compliment the store.

outime 4y ago
They could do something like in Undercover Boss [1] so that employees (allegedly) don't know the person working there is the CEO. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Boss_(British_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Boss_(British_TV_se...
prottog 4y ago
Starbucks doesn't franchise, at least in the US. Though you will find "licensed" stores in airports and such.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Yeah, but don't just let him work in the Seattle suburbs, drop him in random Starbucks around America. Let him work a shift in St. Louis.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
St Louis Starbucks are pretty nice, they aren’t putting stores in bad areas of the city.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

Not sure how well this will work, other than as a PR stunt. If he's serious about this, he should go in, in disguise, without anyone at the store knowing who he is (including top management).

jrm4 4y ago

Oh, the cynicism. I'm not exactly sure how this will go down for Starbucks per se, maybe it is PR-ish -- but to pull the camera back a bit, I think it would be tremendously helpful to normalize this idea everywhere, even if it may not always work out perfectly.

brvsft 4y ago
Yeah, I don't see the big deal. He's the new CEO and appears to be setting the tone, informing people of one of his first efforts. Stating it publicly seems uncontroversial for a business with publicly-traded stock. I also don't see it as some veiled attempt to act like he's trying to empathize with every aspect of the workers' lives. Not that a lot of people are suggesting this, but some are, and it seems like an incorrect impulse to assume that. As the new CEO, he wants to see the operating conditions of their stores, where they make most of their money. Seems like a decent idea to me, and is presumably different from what the previous CEO was doing.
comte7092 4y ago
I used to work in hospitality. One of the higher ups had worked his way up from the bottom of the totem pole. He would come and work the frontline and the employees were generally appreciative. One of his subordinates followed his lead - except he had no idea what he was doing. He was slow, got in people’s way, and did things no frontline employee would ever be allowed to do - just give stuff away constantly. At the end of the day, the CEO isn’t ever going to be under the same pressure or constraints as a normal employee. This is extremely likely to just end up being a vanity project.
jjulius 4y ago
>... I think it would be tremendously helpful to normalize this idea everywhere, even if it may not always work out perfectly. It's all dependent upon the intent of the CEO or person coming in and doing the work. Just as an anecdote, I have seen too many times where a superior comes in with the intent of doing the work to prove it can be done better, rather than to understand the realities of what employees are dealing with, and the results are negative. I frequently had a COO who would come to my warehouse, get on the front line with processing equipment (just as an aside, this was an ITAD company processing end-of-life IT equipment for data sanitization and remarketing, so it's tech-related), and take a cavalier, "SEE! I could go through ALL of that in X amount of minutes! I don't understand why people can't move fast enough blah, blah, blah." What he never realized is that he didn't do all the work. He'd capture only what he looked at in the system, never put anything away, and left a massive pile of work, and garbage, behind him that my team always had to clean up. He wouldn't take the time to do the rest of the work that the team has to do themselves day in and day out. He half-assed it and berated us at the end, and I could never get him to understand this. It's not that it "didn't always work out perfectly", it's that it made morale plummet every single time it happened. So yeah, I share your sentiment, but to a point - it's reliant upon the person diving in to keep an open mind and actually give a shit about it instead of just using it as a, "Look at me, I'm a man of the people!" opportunity.

roflchoppa 4y ago

The only way things like this really work is by not giving any heads up to the store or the store management. Otherwise store management spends a huge amount of time trying to tidy up before “corporate” comes by. At least that was my experience when things like this happened at the fruit stand.

MadSudaca 4y ago
My experience at the lemonade stand have been similar.
- bannedbybros 4y ago
  [dead]
thrdbndndn 4y ago
Assuming he actually works the whole shift, he still can experience what works as a barista in his company is like (workload, how to deal with customers assuming they don't recognize him) somewhat truthfully. I think it's worth something.
- angry_moose 4y ago
  First line: Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations. Something tells me it'll be something like 1-5pm; not the 7am rush.
  - badwolf 4y ago
    I've mixed feelings. Many probably wouldn't want the semi-dead weight of big executive screwing up the morning rush.
    - sebzim4500 4y ago
      I haven't worked retail, I know its unpleasant but is there really that much skill to it?

kieckerjan 4y ago

I once took a cab in the middle of the night. The cabby was a elderly gentleman who did not seem to know his way around very well. It was a long ride so we got talking. Turned out he was the new boss of the company (a fairly big company, lots of cars) who wanted to get to know the circumstances under which his drivers worked. He had been working the night shift for a couple of weeks.

conductr 4y ago
I hope you told him “nice chat, but under normal circumstances I’d be pretty upset that you took me on a joy ride costing me extra time and money.”

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Hope they make him clean the toilets

diebeforei485 4y ago

This is good. But it should be unannounced. He should just show up and work.

stagger87 4y ago
The marketing department will not allow that to happen.
- Arrath 4y ago
  This is good, right? Then a team of <trolls/activists> can all arrive at the same time and order a big pile of 'secret menu' 19-ingredient monstrosities from the CEO.
- dpflan 4y ago
  Social Media viral coefficient may have been higher with a quieter announcement and the CEO just showing up leverage social media managers.
- cushychicken 4y ago
  Any CEO doing this for the right reasons - I.e., to help ensure the product is good - would whip the marketing department right into shape and tell them to keep a lid on it.
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    In this case, the marketing department was not involved, at least publicly. CNBC is reporting this from an internal email they got their hands on.
jonas21 4y ago
Part of the reason to do this is for employees to know that the CEO understands their job and their concerns. The vast majority of employees will not be working at a store the CEO visits, so it makes sense to announce it internally. It sounds like that's what they did, and CNBC got a hold of that email.
4y ago

jeremy_wiebe 4y ago

So basically an episode of the show Undercover Boss? https://www.cbs.com/shows/undercover_boss/ https://www.cbs.com/shows/undercover_boss/

aaomidi 4y ago

Lemme know which store so I can avoid it.

Kye 4y ago

It's a noble idea, but it's not enough to give someone who's already wealthy beyond imagination a sense of the precarity of people who have to work to live. That's the real problem: people with all the power making decisions that impact people in circumstances they can't imagine even if they might have experienced something that vaguely resembles it 20 or 40 years before. No matter what he does, he knows he gets go to home to a safe place with plenty to eat at the end of the day. You can't simulate the effect of the lack of that certainty on someone's work.

ethicalsmacker 4y ago

Ah yes, the CEO is slumming it. I would be more impressed if he accepted cafe pay for one month instead.

proee 4y ago
The CEO is probably independently wealthy, so shutting off his pay for one month does nothing. I think this is a great opportunity to get to know what it's like to work at this level, the type of people, etc. If this person has a heart, it should enable good changes in the company based on bottom-up feedback.
- maximinus_thrax 4y ago
  In the post Reagan era, a CEO with a heart is not going to be CEO for long.

elijaht 4y ago

This is cool. IIRC Doordash has a similar policy for at least rank and file employees. I think it’s a great way to understand aspects of a business

captnFwiffo 4y ago

[dead]

moi2388 4y ago

Fantastic. Now stop sourcing 1% of your coffee unethically (as per your statement that 99% of your coffee is ethically sourced)

adrusi 4y ago
I don’t know the details around this, but it seems like it would be near impossible to get 100% ethical sourcing, because no matter how good your process of vetting suppliers is, at Starbucks scale, you’re going to get fraud. A shady supplier just needs to bribe or blackmail one of your procurement staff to look the other way.

digitcatphd 4y ago

I know things are bad in the economy but dang..

riffic 4y ago

walking the Gemba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemba

daedalus_j 4y ago

Ron Johnson used to do this when he headed Apple retail. Would just go into a store totally undercover to the customers (obviously staff would recognize him) and work for a bit. Occasionally fairly major changes, both to the staff side and to the customer experience, were made based on his visits. I don't recall ever seeing a press announcement about it. Saying you're doing it to win brownie points sure makes it seem inauthentic. Then again maybe it's better this way than leaking it to a reporter and pretending that it was discovered organically. Guess we'll have to wait and see if anything actually comes out of it to know if it's just a stunt, but I'd put my money on it.

parker_mountain 4y ago
> Occasionally fairly major changes like what? I'm curious. There's nothing that shows the flaws of a process like running it yourself.
- stcroixx 4y ago
  Probably better to just listen to the people that do it all day than to think you pop in as an outsider and have some special insight.
  - xeromal 4y ago
    Any human in the world will believe someone if they experience for themselves. Sometimes it's necessary.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    People need performance and narrative. Spending one day a month so you can say to fellow executives "I actually went and touched the problem, we need to fix it" and so employees can say to each other "he actually came and touched the problem, he must be working on fixing it" has real value. Actually learning about the problem and coming up with a solution is best done by listening to the people like you said, but there's a role for the other thing too.

system16 4y ago

The reverse of this: in my early days in tech support for a major router manufacturer, we were told the CEO would occasionally call in posing as a customer, and agents had been fired for being rude or offering poor support. To this day I don't know if it was true or not, but it scared enough people to think Big Brother was always watching.

mavu 4y ago

It's a nice gimmick that gives some positive press coverage. Only in a very dysfunctional company will this lead to any meaningfull improvement.

nico 4y ago

Maybe he’s scared of AI and starting to train on skills that are harder to replace by computer, at least in the short term.

fykem 4y ago

[flagged]

Julesman 4y ago
Definitely a PR move. But I figure it's about implying that the work isn't that hard and that the reasons for unionization are overblown. In other words, the work is easy so they don't need a raise. Some BS like that.
nr2x 4y ago
Yuuuuuup, this dude is clearly terrified of unionization.
JustSomeNobody 4y ago
Everything about the Starbucks CEO shift up is because of unionization. Old CEO didn't want to face congress, now if he still has to, he can simply say, "I don't speak for Starbucks". Schultz is a freaking COWARD. Now this. It's clearly a PR stunt to show other suits that the CEO "cares". But it's really to keep pushing their thumb down on the union busting button.

tullianus 4y ago

SpaceX (at least in my experience) requires design and manufacturing engineers to spend shifts on the production line to make sure there isn't low-hanging fruit in improving either the design or the manufacturing flow. If your manager hears complaints from the production team and you haven't spent some shifts on the floor getting to know the issue personally, you won't be long for the job.

dehrmann 4y ago

IIRC, Starbucks has a store at their HQ. Hopefully it's not that one.

robotburrito 4y ago

They should pick a barista to be CEO for one day a month.

danesparza 4y ago

All of the execs should have to do this. Creating a vested interest in better working conditions and a better customer experience is good for everybody.

msla 4y ago

Now where have I heard this before... We few, we happy few, we band of baristas; For any to-day that boils a brew with me Shall be my bestie; be they ne'er so vile, This day shall glow up their selfie post; And customers in Bed-Stuy now a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their socials cheap whiles any speaks That pulled with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

JohnFen 4y ago

I'm not sure I see the point of this, unless it's just for PR. Working a half day per month will tell you very little of importance in any workplace. And, if you're the CEO of the company and all of the other employees (and especially management) knows you're the CEO, working that half day will tell you exactly nothing.

zachthewf 4y ago
As long as the customers don't know, I can imagine it might help.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Yeah, I guess I imagined he was looking for a whole-picture understanding, not just the customer interactions. But I suppose I was mistaken.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  A customer is going to get banned from all starbucks on his very first shift for being rude.
efsavage 4y ago
I think you'd be surprised what even a little manufactured exposure can do. It doesn't need to be undercover. At almost every company I've worked at that asks for feedback I recommend some version of this. Some things I think you could learn in only a few hours at a Starbucks: * "Wow that machine is a pain in the ass to use" * "3 customers got angry at me because ____" * "Making ___ the way Jane showed me was much easier than the training" * "I hate it when customers pay using ____"
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Sure, there are a few things. That's why I qualified my statement. But they're necessarily going to be minor things, not the larger persistent problems that only become clear once you've spent some real time working.

gooseyman 4y ago

Working a shift is great. While co-workers may act different, most customers won't. Now... CEOs with "push-button menu option" based call centers under them should be mandated to call monthly and complete some task.

linker3000 4y ago

This is laudable, and it will be good if it had a return on investment by identifying opportunities for improvement. On a personal level, however, it would only work for me if Mr Narasimhan decided he didn't like the taste of the coffee and changed it; I haven't visited a Starbucks in decades because I find their brew quite unpleasant!

pipeline_peak 4y ago

What an insult to the actual food service workers. Complete waste of time that could be better spent improving their conditions.

bluedino 4y ago

I worked for a large tier 1 automotive supplier where every new hire, whether you were an executive, salesperson, whatever, had to work the assembly line for their first two weeks.

dghughes 4y ago

It's a good idea PR or not. Seeing employee stress is good since just because work is being done doesn't mean the employees are able to do it effortlessly. Stress on employees I think is overlooked as long as the work is done. Or rather the employee stress isn't noticed since it's not measured or even thought about.

btbuildem 4y ago

Ideally, he gets reamed by some irate customers and gets to experience what the staff do on the daily.

ivansmf 4y ago

Allegedly Costco has a policy of making their white collar folks work on the floor of their stores and rotate positions before getting to the office, same with McDonalds. I would love to hear from someone with first hand experience to confirm or correct my impression. I did confirm that Costco gives good benefits and decent pay for all their automotive section employees, and since then I only buy tires there (since 2000) for that very reason. Every time I visit I reconfirm that is the case. It is not much in the great scheme of things, but it is an honest effort to buy from good employers.

chankstein38 4y ago

Ah cool. One day a month where everyone has to be on their best behavior and everything has to work perfectly to impress the CEO who will, inevitably, not gain anything from the experience except the ability to pass judgement on employees that have to deal with the struggles of this job every day for like 1/100th of his pay.

brodouevencode 4y ago

Chick-fil-A CEOs have been doing this (if not more frequent) since inception

elmer007 4y ago
I'm not familiar with the C-suite level, but I can confirm that my local CFA's operator is routinely working various positions at his store. When he isn't, he's sitting at a table working on paperwork. I'm there a lot (some would say too much, but I wholeheartedly disagree!), and it's odd to pass through without seeing him. He works the register, he takes orders in the drive through, he directs traffic in the parking lot, he carries orders out-- everything. I'm certain that he's done shifts in the kitchen as well, just that I couldn't seem him to know. Just today, I went into the restroom to wash my hands and he was cleaning the stall.

zapdrive 4y ago

Does he have a degrees in gender studies?

neilv 4y ago

Talking with the people on the ground is generally a great idea. I first heard of Hewlett-Packard doing this. As can having execs be familiar with the boots on the ground business, so it's not just numbers abstractions. Issuing a press release looks like a different or additional goal. Such as customer/investor PR for the company, internal messaging (reaching vast low-level employees via public news outlets), or personal brand.

maximinus_thrax 4y ago

My inner cynic screams that the cafes will temporarily become Potemkin villages, with fake customers, photo ops and everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

Diederich 4y ago

I worked at the WalMart home office in Bentonville, Arkansas for about 13 years, the whole time in Information Systems, salaried. For most of that time, there was something called 'store appreciation', around November, where everybody salaried had to travel to a WalMart store and work a full day there. And it had to be a Saturday, in addition to the normal Monday-Friday. Most of my peers really complained about it, and it was kind of a pain in the ass, but it was usually illuminating and interesting. More than once, my experience there directly illuminated stuff I was working on or could work on back in tech land. Inspired by that, I started to strongly encourage everyone on my team to spend a day in the NOC or Field Support (the two help desks we supported more than others) once a quarter or so. Again, a lot of complaining but most of the time we'd come back with some really useful insights. EDIT: To be clear, 'everyone salaried' definitely included all of the executives, who would make a big deal out of it during big meetings, and often talk about their own personal findings. It went back to a very "in the store, hands on" style from the founder, Sam Walton.

standardUser 4y ago

This kind of stunt is right up there with "pizza parties" except unlike pizza parties, which only insult your workers, this will also completely stress them out for a day!

twawaaay 4y ago

As it should be. Nothing worse than a CEO who does not understand how their business works at the lowest level. Unless this somehow does not matter for business profitability or future (which there are examples of but much less than many people would think). In my experience, upper management has this problem of getting accurate information. This happens for many reasons and is really, really, really hard to fix. It usually requires conscious, serious and sustained effort from the manager demonstrating his/her people that it is safe to bring information whether good or bad. I bet the a shift once a month is good investment of time as long as he won't be placed in a bubble -- a model Starbucks location where everything works perfectly because the CEO works there once a month.

mataug 4y ago
I really hope he picks a random Starbucks location across various cities.
- twawaaay 4y ago
  I know people behave very differently when within hearing distance of a higher up. Now imagine you are the highest one... every person you meet, every day, is constantly thinking hard about filtering what they are telling you. It does not matter if you pick random locations, people will still modify what they are saying when they see you. But it helps a bit. There is higher chance you will finally meet some people who are not afraid to tell the truth. There is also chance you will start seeing some patterns. It is probable that managers will clean up a lot of stuff when they suddenly get to know about a visitation, but they won't clean up everything and you will get at least some glimpses. Visit enough restaurants enough times and glimpses may form an image of reality.
- maxk42 4y ago
  I think it would be better if he stuck to one. That way employees might over time become comfortable enough to voice their concerns to him. A one-time visit would feel more like an inspection than anything else and everyone would be on their best behavior.

imroot 4y ago

When I worked retail tech, I would find opportunities to go to the store to figure out what the pain points were for our hourly associates, and found time to work on getting those problems removed or reduced: happier workers equal more sales.

nektro 4y ago

> Starbucks CEO says he’ll work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month > Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations. contradiction in the first sentence. doesnt leave this stunt in good light

safeimp 4y ago
What’s the contradiction? I did a quick search and see a Starbucks shift consists of: > Evening shifts are around 3pm - 7pm or 4pm - 8pm. Morning Shifts 4 a.m. - 1 p.m. Midday Shifts 8 a.m. - 4 p.m

acomjean 4y ago

There was a Roger Moore show "TV NATION" where he challenged CEOs to do things with their products. "Format a Floppy" was one. The only one who took him up was the ford CEO who did an oil change. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Nation

slim 4y ago
Michael Moore

fvold 4y ago

I guess there is no PR wins in just listening to the floor-level employees, then?

meghan_rain 4y ago

Putin should fight one day in Bachmut and maybe some problems the world is facing right now wohld solve themselves :-)

Pigalowda 4y ago

I’m sure the regular employees will love enduring an entire day dedicated to the sociopath’s dog and pony show. The CEO should just go work in a coffee field for a day. What an ass

ahoy 4y ago

Can you imagine how annoying it would be to be one of the bariastas working when Schultz shows up and is just in your way for 4 hours?

everly 4y ago
Just FYI they got a new CEO

telecuda 4y ago

Ask to be put on frontline email/phone customer support for your product a few times a year. Hearing problems/complaints directly from the voice of the customer, then having to explain a sometimes cumbersome workaround to solve them, is invaluable. Plus you buy goodwill with your support team for walking a day in their shoes.

dahwolf 4y ago

One of my recurring revenge-porn dreams is as follow. I'm the owner (so not CEO) of a massive multinational. I'm mysterious and not really publicly known. The actual CEO is the public face. Next, I apply for a role in one of the branches, say a local sysadmin, get the job and start working there. I do my job, intentionally fuck up a few times, and take note of any dysfunction in the organization. There's lots, management are bullies. Fast forward a few months and at the weekly all hands meeting, it is me sitting at the head of the table. The local manager aggressively insists that I move, but I remain seated. He gets security involved but security does nothing. He tells me I'm fired but I don't blink. As the dust settles, I open the meeting and immediately fire all of management, whom are physically thrown out. Next, I give all staff a raise and do something nice and personal for each of them. Everybody claps. Then I wake up from the cat sitting on my face.

pkaye 4y ago
Isn't that the premise of the Undercover Boss show?
- dahwolf 4y ago
  No, my story is much better. Undercover Boss doesn't fire anybody as far as I know. The premise of Undercover Boss is a company that is starving their employees. To distract from this awkward reality, the Undercover Boss picks an employee that is double-starving, say a single mother. And then radically improves her life. Everybody claps and is in tears not realizing that everybody else continues to be fucked. Not my approach. I achieve total justice.
  - elliotto 4y ago
    This is a great description of all feel good American media
    - dahwolf 4y ago
      I would complete the description by mentioning that the one employee that was helped probably had to return whatever help was given as it was just for TV. They can keep their 20% discount though on the after-work course "5 ways to financial success" so that personal issues stop disrupting productivity.

karaterobot 4y ago

I know there are companies that make everybody (PMs, engineers, whatever) take a turn doing customer support. This sounds a bit like that: make people who are normally at a distance from the actual customers and their needs get a face full of it. I've spent a lot of time building software for people who aren't me, largely in domains where the users are experts in something I've never done. Even though I'm not a CEO, and this would be more of a lateral move on the org chart, I've always really wanted to actually spend a couple weeks just doing some version of their jobs instead of mine. I think it would be worth several years of just asking them questions about what they need.

xutopia 4y ago

Except he'll be paid 100 times more an hour to do so.

Sherl 4y ago

Higher ups in Toyota used to have this. Where if you join Toyota even as GM/VP, you would assemble the cars for a week as part of your induction into culture.

awad 4y ago

I am not sure if HN was always like this or something changed over time, but there is clearly no winning here/there's always a critic.

eek2121 4y ago

Let me know when he loses access to his credit lines and general net worth during the period when he works, then get back to me. All these folks are so out of touch with reality.

8bitsrule 4y ago

Getting to a working store will be hard if he's in Seattle, considering how many stores they've shut down in/near downtown Seattle in the past couple of years. Maybe he'll be flying to stores in the Caribbean region. Article sez he 'plans to work a shift', then later sez 'he'll work a half day every month'. So I guess they mean a corporate shift?

black_13 4y ago

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