Beyond the Barista: The Interdisciplinary Challenge of the Starbucks Strike

The nationwide strike by unionized Starbucks baristas is more than just a labor dispute. It's a complex, multi-layered challenge that touches on human resources & operations, organizational psychology, technology & efficiency, and, of course, overall economics.

Starbucks corporate human resources has the task of finding the intersection of fair wages, benefits, and sustainable staffing models. Corporate leadership has to reckon with and address organizational strategy issues of employee retention, morale, and the relationship between corporate strategy and the reality of being in front-office customer service roles.

Corporate leadership also must come to terms with a failure in strategy that could not effectively leverage technology to maintain, let alone improve, efficiency. Increased app orders in the last few years without proper staffing and commensurate pay for their in-store staff let to more strain and stress on employees.

At The Council on Interdisciplinary Advancement, we see this as a perfect example of a problem that cannot be solved by a single industry's perspective. Resolving it requires cross-industry cooperation, bringing together labor experts, tech strategists, business leaders, and economists to build solutions that work for both the partners and the company.

What interdisciplinary lens do you think is most crucial for solving the current challenges facing the retail service sector?

Join the conversation and let's advance a solution together.

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