The new CEO of Starbucks will work in coffee shops once a month

It is very unusual for CEOs of large companies to work side by side with regular employees on a regular basis. a Study 2018 Professors at Harvard Business School found that CEOs spend, on average, 6 percent of their time with frontline employees, compared to 72 percent in meetings.

“CEOs run the real risk of operating in a bubble and not seeing the actual world their workers face,” the authors write. “Spending time with the rank and file, and with skilled outside circles on the front lines, is also an indispensable way to get reliable information about what’s really going on in the company and in the industry.”

Neil Saunders, managing director of analytics firm GlobalData, said all retail CEOs should consider taking time to “face the coal in their business.”

“Currently some do, many don’t,” said Saunders. “Interacting with customers, talking to team members and seeing how things work helps to understand and improve the decision-making process. It basically helps ensure that policy is not made out of an ivory tower.”

Inside the battle for Starbucks’ first union contract

Narasimhan will make his shifts on the front lines as Starbucks faces disruptions to its workforce, joining employees at 288 of the company’s 9,000 stores. On Wednesday, employees at 100 Starbucks coffee shops stopped working, and dozens of unionized baristas gathered in Seattle to make demands that include a nationwide starting wage of $20 an hour.

Starbucks declined to respond to a question from The Washington Post about how much Narasimhan would be paid during his monthly in-store shifts.

The company has been battling accusations of unfair labor practices in Buffalo, where Starbucks’ union efforts first took root. Starbucks displayed a “general disregard for the basic rights of employees,” wrote National Labor Relations Board Judge Michael A. Rosas, in a 220-page order released this month, accused the company of “egregious and widespread” violations of federal labor law.

“The most meaningful gesture incoming CEO Laxman Narasimhan can make to workers is to come to the negotiating table to negotiate with us in good faith,” said Michelle Eisen, a barista at Buffalo Starbucks who was an organizer at the chain’s first store to unionize. In a statement to The Post. “We don’t need CEOs to make beverages, we want them to respect our legal right to organize a union and have a real voice in this company.”

In Thursday’s letter, Narasimhan said the company must work to improve the employee experience, “including long-term recruitment and retention, and continuing our investment in partner pay and store operations.”

Starbucks Workers United, which represents more than 7,500 employees in hundreds of stores, said the group hopes Narasimhan’s commitment to spending consistent time alongside frontline employees “is a sign he’s ready to transform Starbucks’ relationship with workers and forge a new path forward.” Our union.

In recent decades, there has been a shift in what workers want to see from their leaders, according to Anthony Nyberg, professor of management at the University of South Carolina and researcher at the Academy of Management.

Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s it was typical for CEOs to remain aloof and take a more “authoritarian” approach to leadership, “there is now good evidence that we want our leaders to be more authentic and more relatable,” Nyberg said.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence, Nyberg said, that Narasimhan committed to working alongside employees at a time when there was “turmoil and conflict” in the forward parts of Starbucks’ workforce. For new leaders in organizations, he said, it is especially important to show a willingness to listen and understand how the company operates before making changes.

“It sends a very strong signal to everyone that he cares enough to get involved with the people who are really doing all the hard work,” Nyberg said.