The Value Attributes in the Specialty Coffee Industry

Starbucks is one of the well-known and rapidly growing organizations in the whole world. It was organized in Seattle in 1971. The organization grew slowly at first, but widened its trade’s sphere rapidly in the 1990s. At the beginning of the new millennium, there were nearly 9,000 Starbucks point-of-sales all more than the world and the organization’s eventual retail aim was to open 30,000 point-of-sales. It was broadly thought that the organization’s prosperity and rapid raise was gained mostly thanks to its committed and motivated workforce.

Starbucks took care about its workers and was one of the organizations in the retail sphere to give open-handed profits to both full time workers as well as part time ones. This provided that workers stayed motivated, and Starbucks had a relatively low worker turn more than of staff. Nevertheless, in the early 2000s, the organization faced the problem of finding and drinking the right number and kind of staff to serve its future development.

Starbucks Coffee Organization is the chief retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the whole world. In addition to its retail places in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim, Starbucks retails coffee and tea products via its specialty operations, involving its online shop. Additionally, Starbucks manufactures and retails Frappuccino coffee drink in bottles and super premium ice-creams via its joint venture partnerships. The Organization's other brands widen the Starbucks Experience via the best products: Tazo Tea Organization proposes innovative premium tea, and Hear Music manufactures and disseminates exceptional compact discs.

The chairman and chief global strategist of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, said in 2002: "The relationship we have with our people and the culture of our organization is our most sustainable competitive benefit. We aren’t in the coffee business, serving people. We are in the people business, serving coffee”. In 2005 Starbucks Coffee Organization took the second place among large organizations in the Fortune "Best Organizations to Work For" survey. This is no surprise to those who know the organization's human resources management policies and work culture.

In general, the retail industry is famous for its indifferent attitude towards workers. Most organizations do not care for their workers, and thus, suffer from a high rate of worker turnover of staff. In this respect, Starbucks widens its worker-friendly policies and supportive work culture. This is the value number one. It was noted that the organization was widening its profits program to part-time workers - something that not many other organizations propose. As a result, Starbucks workers are very productive in the industry and the organization has rather low worker turnover of staff.

Thus, Starbucks' human resource strategies are very effective as they make the turnover of staff low and have experienced workers. Nevertheless, in 2000, there existed several possible problems: the support of its staff with the same level of profits in the future connected with the raise of workers; decreasing of human resource costs by cutting down on profits; preservation of an important element in company’s development - its organization culture.