The Case Study On Employees Motivation Of Starbucks Beijing Management Essay

The purpose of this questionnaire is to investigate the current situation of employees’ satisfaction in Starbucks of Beijing. In order to know how satisfied employees are with Starbucks of Beijing, the questionnaire must refer to every aspects of employees’ work life. That is to say, any factor which will influence their satisfaction with Starbucks of Beijing should be designed into a question. The questionnaire is designed from the analysis of four aspects.

The first one is employees’ satisfaction with the reward they get for their work. In the aspect of work reward, there are three problems that must be paid enough attention to. That whether the employee is satisfied with his own pay is the basic one. If the employees feel fair when comparing his pay with his investment, if the employees feel fair when comparing his own pay with others’. The two problems come from the fairness theory in motivation, which means that the fairness include absolute fairness and relative fairness. And then is the employee option program of Starbucks, which is one of the welfare of Starbucks. Referring to the employee option program, it is an interesting thing. In Starbucks, the employee is not called employee, but partner. That is to say, if you are employed by Starbucks, you will be probable to become the stakeholder of Starbucks. This is also a type of reward for employees. So the relationship between employees’ work motivation and the employee option program should also be investigated.

The second one is employees’ satisfaction with their own job. That is to say, what the employee values most beside the pay should also be taken seriously in their work. These factors include their work environment, a sense of achievement, Harmonious interpersonal relationships, the opportunity to improve one’s skill, and so on. For example, if they are interested in the work, their feeling about the challenge of their job and if they can get a sense of achievement in their work. And also, the personal growth in the work is also important for the employee’s working motivation. And then in the aspect of the employee’s satisfaction with the work itself, a theory must be considered. That is the goal-setting theory. Through the theory, goal-setting in the work is necessary and important. And also the goal should be specific. There are three questions, which are designed considering from the goal-setting theory. If the employee likes setting a goal in his work, the goal should be specific or concrete, and then if the employee want to participate in the process of setting the goal together with his administrators.

And then the third one is employees’ satisfaction with their work environment and work group. The employee’s satisfaction with the work environment and work group is a very important one among the factors that influence his satisfaction and work motivation.

As is known to all, one person will work more comfortably and more effectively in an environment that he likes. So the employee’s satisfaction with his work environment must be paid enough attention, when considering the employee’s work motivation and satisfaction. And then is the work group. This problem can be divided into two parts. The first one is the employee’s relationship with his direct superior. The superior’s attitude towards his employees, the superior’s work style, leading style and some other things will all influence the employee’s satisfaction and work motivation.

And the last one is employees’ satisfaction with the company. That is the employee’s general impression about Starbucks. The employee’s attitude towards the company policy, whether it is positive or negative is very important. And then the company’s attention on employees is enough or not. For example, whether the company gives the employee enough opportunity to grow and show his personal ability is very important for the employee’s satisfaction. The employee’s view about the company performance and about the staff ability of the company can also inflect the employee’s impression about the company. In addition, the sense of belonging and identity in the company is also a sign of satisfaction with the company.

2.   Data Collection

Before the process of collecting the data, a series of problems must be considered and settled. For example, the way of carrying out the investigation, the location of the process of writing the questionnaires, the ratio of the gender and age of these objectives and the ratio of employees of different level positions. These problems must be settled perfectly before the process of investigating.

In order to have reliable data, 100 questionnaires must be sent out, of which 80 will be useful for us. That is to say, 100 employees should be selected from all of the employees of Starbucks in Beijing. In addition, 80 of these 100 questionnaires are expected to be effective and reliable. In Beijing, there are about 35 stores of Starbucks. Among those stores, 5 stores of them are selected randomly according to their locations. And then 100 employees of these 5 stores will be the research objects of the questionnaire. And also, these 20 people of every store are selected randomly.

The Starbucks stores we research are all of Beijing, of which the locations are relatively intent. And then, the number of employees that we should research is not so much. In addition, in order to get a set of reliable data from these employees, we had better send out these questionnaires and then collect them after about 2 hours. During the two hours, these objectives can answer these questions at the most natural state. So we can carry out the investigation by the way of sending out on-site questionnaires in these objective Starbucks stores. Firstly, we ask the managers of these stores and get their allowance to carry out the questionnaire. Considering the busy work-time of the employees of Starbucks Beijing, the time is set at 12:30 to 14:30. At that time, the employees have a little work to do and have enough time to thingk carefully about the questions on the questionnaire. In addition, twenty objectives of every store will be a large task and work. So the questionnaire is carried out in five days. The time is from August 15th to 19th. The time arrangement assures the reliablity of the employees’ answers.

In order to study if there are differences between male employees and female employees, the gender ratio should be also considered. In Starbucks of Beijing, the ratio of female employees is aliitle more than the ratio of male employees. So during the questionnaire, the female employees will be also a little more than male employees.

Also, the difference between the old employees and young employees should also be investigated. In Starbucks Beijing, younger employees are more than older employees. Therefore, in the investigation, about 30% of all the objectives are in the age range of 35 to 45 and the other 70% are in the age range of 25 to 35. The much bigger proportion of relative young employees is because the proportion of young employees in Starbucks of Beijing is much bigger than the proportion of the old ones. In addition, the bigger proportion of young objectives is also because the views of these younger employees can be better able to explain the problems about the employee’s satisfaction with the company and his work.

And then the position level should also be considered. That is because the purpose of the investigation is to study the satisfaction of the low level employees of Starbucks. So 80% of our objectives are low level staff of Starbucks. And other 20% are management staff.

Validity and reliability of questionnaire/interviews

The study uses the questionnaire survey method, which is a widely used method of investigation. In this investigation method, questionnaire is a tool to obtain information. So the quality of the questionnaire is very important for the reliability and validity of the survey result. So it is necessary to analyze the validity and reliability of the questionnaire.

Reliability means the consistency degree of the results when repeating measuring the same object using the same method. When the questionnaire is designed, almost all of the important factors are considered carefully. Firstly, the basic factors that influence the employees’ motivation must be analyzed. They are employees’ satisfaction with the reward they get for their work, their satisfaction with their own job, their satisfaction with their work environment and work group and their satisfaction with his work environment and the company. After the full consideration of these factors, the motivation theories are considered. According to the two-factor theory, there are two kinds of factors that must be paid attention to. They are hygiene factors and motivation factors. Then all the factors, which are included in the two kinds of factors, are considered before the designation of the questionnaire. Some of the inmportant factors for Starbucks Beijing are selected to be designed into the questionnaire. So in the comprehensive aspect, the reliability of the questionnaire is no doubt. And then, referring to the validity of the questionnaire, it can be analyzed from the view of data collection. When selecting the objective employees, the ratio of the genders, the ratio of the work positions, the ratio of the locations and some other important factors are all considered. With these consideration, the data selected in the questionnaire are of validity. Generally speaking, after the careful questionnaire designing process and data collecting process, the validity and the reliability of the questionnaire can be enough for the research.

Chapter Four¼šData Analysis

1. Data presentation and Statistical analysis

Chart 1

From chart one, it can be seen that 65% of the employees are satisfied with their pay and the other 35% are dissatisfied with their pay. It can be concluded that most of employees of Starbucks of Beijing are satisfied with their work pay. However, 35% is not a small number. By a deeper research, it is found that the 35 percent, who are dissatisfied with their pay, are mainly these people, who are in the age range of twenty five to thirty five. It shows that there are some problems in the pay system of the new and young employees, which must attract the attention of the Starbucks of Beijing. Since 35 percent of the employees are dissatisfied with their pay, it should be explored that why they are satisfied. There are two reasons that can explain the problem. Firstly, they think their reward is not matching with their investment in their work. Secondly, they compare their pay with their colleagues’, they think it is unfair. The question will be referred to in the end of this part.

Chart 2

From chart two, it shows that 60 percent of these employees value the work environment most, 20 percent of these employees value the sense of achievement and belonging most, and the other 20 percent of them value the opportunity for their personal growth most. That is to say, most of the employees take the work environment as the most important factor in their work. It can be explained that employees can work well and comfortably in a good work environment, which is the basic condition for a good work performance. And then, the sense of achievement and belonging and the opportunity for one’s growth are also important. It can be said that, when people work in a good environment and he likes his own job, then he will want to have the sense of achievement and belongings, which means he hope that his job is full of challenge and he can belong to the company out of his heart. From this data, Starbucks of Beijing should pay enough attention to these three factors. If these three factors are all done well, then the employees are very likely to be loyalty to his company and his own work, which means he will perform actively and excellent in his work.

Chart 3

Considering the title of goal setting, chart three shows that 80 percent of the employees are very willing to participate in the process of setting goal. Only 8 percent of them are reluctant to take part in the activity and 12% of them are indifferent to the matter. It’s easy to find that most of people are willing to take part in these more important and more leading work together with their administrators. In fact, there are two questions before this question in the questionnaire. In the first question, about 80 percent of the employees think that it is necessary to set a goal for their work. About 10 percent of them think sometimes it is necessary to set a work goal and the other 10 percent think that it is unnecessary to set a goal. And the second question, 75 percent of the employees think that a specific goal will enhance his work performance, while only 5 percent approve a concrete goal. These three questions altogether tell Starbucks that the employees know the importance of setting a goal in the work and most of them are willing to participate in the goal-setting process. So some policies about the goal-setting, which is taken part in by the employees should be formulated and carried out.

Chart 4

In chart four, there are only 15 percent of the employees, who think their work to be challenging. And 25 percent of them think their work are challenging sometimes. In addition, 60 percent of them think their work is lack of challenge. This can be seen as a challenging problem of Starbucks at least in Beijing. In chart two, it can be seen that the challenge of work is also valued a lot by the employees. So the work lack of challenge is unlikely to be liked and loved by employees. In addition, there is another question, which is closely related with this chart. Considering the biggest problem of the employee, 60 percent of these employees select the sense of achievement and 20 percent of them select the relationship with colleagues. These two questions all show that the challenge of the work in Starbucks is not so enough.

In addition, there are some more important questions should be paid enough attention to. About 80 percent of these employees think his pay is fair comparing with his investment in his work, while the other 20 percent think his pay to be unfair. Referring to the problem of the relationship between employees’ work motivation and the employee option program of Starbucks, 90 percent of these employees select the answer of close relationship. That shows the importance of a good welfare policy.

And then some questions about the satisfaction with his work should also be paid enough attention to. Firstly, the interest of these employees for their own work, 60 percent of these employees are very interested in their work, 22 percent of them have a little interest in their work and 18 percent of them have no interest, which means that a lot of the employees in Starbucks of Beijing are working for their interest. Secondly, When referring to the question that if the company gives the employee enough opportunity to grow, only 25 percent of the employees believe that there are enough opportunities for them to grow, 35 percent of them admit that there are some opportunities but not enough, and there are 40 percent of the employees believe that there is no opportunity for them to grow.

At last, some questions about the employee’s satisfaction with the company are also very important. Firstly, the question about the enthusiasm of employees, 7o percent of these employees think that most of the staff of Starbucks is working positively. Among them, 15 percent think that minority of the staff is working positively and 15 percent think that all the staff is burnout. From these data, it can be concluded that the staff motivation of Starbucks of Beijing is much positive. Secondly, there is a question about the company’s attention on the employees. In this question, 60 percent of the employees believe that the attention of the company is enough and 40 percent of them think that it is not enough. And among the 40 percent, who think the company’s attention is not enough, most of them are low level staff. So Starbucks should pay more attention to the low level staff. And then the last one is the employee’s best liked way of getting reward for his excellent performance. In this question, 50 percent of them approve the present method the company is carrying out. And 30 percent of them select the material reward and 20 percent select the other choices. It can be seen that these Chinese employees like material rewards or good welfare. That can contribute to the common value for the life assurance of Chinese people.

2. Findings

2.1 The good work environment

Through the result of the questionnaire, it can be seen that employees of Starbucks Beijing are very satisfied with their work environment. Starbucks is an international band. In the industry of service, the environment is likely to be the same with each other. To achieve success of environment in the service industry is a difficult task. However, the environment of Starbucks is very unique and comfortable. When you come into the Starbucks Beijing for the first time, the only feeling is comfortable,relaxed,unique and amazing. Starbucks is the third space for people, except for the home and the office. The third space is a unique space for the customer to relax and enjoy their life. And also, the unique environment is a beautiful and comfortable environment for the employees of Starbucks. In an environment like this, the employee can provide service for the customer with the company’s mission in their heart. For the customers and the employees, the environment of Starbucks Beijing is successful. So the good environment can be regarded as one of the factors for the success of Starbucks Beijing.

2.2The satisfying material reward

Through some questions and their anwsers in the questionnaire, it can be found that it is very important for employees of Starbucks Beijing to have a satisfying material reward. In Starbucks Beijing, the staff is not be called “employees” but “partners”. That is to say, the people employed by Starbucks Beijing is likely to become the stockholder of Starbucks. The “coffee stock” is a stock program for the staff, which is carried out by the Starbucks Beijing. The idea of the stock program is that every excellent employee of Starbucks is probable to hold a stock of Starbucks. That will relate every employee of Starbucks with the general business performance of the company, which means that every employee of Starbucks will work with the same active attitude with the CEO of Starbucks.

The motivation method of Starbucks Beijing is related closely with the unique management method of Schultz. Schultz thinks that, the wealth can only be achieved by the honesty and continuous effort. He said that, “the management of a band is a whole-life cause. Band is a fragile matter. It must be admitted that the success of the Starbucks band is not a one-time grant of the title and nobility. And the band must be protected and maintained every day.” This kind of protection and maintainance must be carrie d out by all the staff of Starbucks Beijing. The employee stock program is a kind of this protection and maintainance. It should be believed that the strongest and longest band is built up in the heart of customerd and partners. The stock system of Starbucks improves the reward of employees, improves the culture and value of the company, and also lowers the staff turnover rate. Therefore, it can be said that satisfying material reward is another factor for Starbuck’s success. In addition, it should be paid enough attention to that some employees are not satisfied with their material rewards. So Starbucks Beijing should do more effort to satisfy employees in the aspect of material rewards.

2.3The employee training of Starbucks

The good work environment and the satisfying material reward are the hygiene factors, which influence the employee motivation of Starbucks Beijing. These factor can only avoid employees’ dissatisfaction, but can’t lead to motivation of employees. In the following part, some motivation factors of Starbucks Beijing will be analyzed in detail. In the questionnaire, there is a question about the employee training of the staff of Starbucks Beijing. Through the answers, it can be seen that the employees are very satisfied with the employee training of Starbucks Beijing. That is to say, the employee training is enough for these employees to work smoothly and easily. For every new employee of Starbucks, they will have a training program, which teaches employees how to become a qualified coffee barista and teaches them the core idea of Starbucks Beijing. Through this kind of training, they will know more about the company and deliver the legend service of Starbucks Beijing to the customers and the communities with their work enthusiasm. Besides this training program, the employees also have a lot of other training programs about their specific job after taking part in the service work in Starbucks Beijing. In addition, the coffee barista plan is designed for these partners of Starbucks Beijing to help them to become a coffee barista and provide for the customers. All these training programs contribute to the success of Starbucks Beijing, which is another important factor for the success of Starbucks in the aspect of employee motivation and business performance.

2.4The company culture

For a company, the enterprise culture is the spirit of a company. The culture of Starbucks Beijing greatly values the company’s responsibility for the employees and the responsibility for the society. Starbucks of Beijing gives the employees the respect that they deserve. The employees of Starbucks Beijing are also the band delegation of Starbucks and the marketing staff of Starbucks Beijing, who will tell the customers what Starbucks is like and how an unique company Starbucks is. This is the best advertisement for Starbucks. The good relationship between the employees and the customers makes the success of Starbucks Beijing. Besides the responsibility for the employees, Starbucks also values the responsibility for the society. For example, the ethical sourcing, the environmental commitment and the community feedback. These are all the performances of Starbucks Beijing in the aspect of the society responsibility. The society responsibility Starbucks loads gives the employees their cohesion and identity for Starbucks. So the company culture must be concerned, which can lead to the loyalty of the customers and the employees.

3.Discussion

The aim to pursue by administrators of modern enterprises is to create maximum value for the enterprises and bring staff’s enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity. In practice, the enterprises should take effective motivating measures and establish rational objective and motivating measures for a long time to urge staff to create more value for the enterprises.

3.1 The theory analysis of employee motivation of Starbucks Beijing

3.1.1 Two-Factor Theory

The traditional theory, which is also called motivation-hygiene theory, holds that the opposite side of satisfaction is dissatisfaction and the opposite side of dissatisfaction is satisfaction. However, two-factor theory holds that the opposite side of satisfaction is that there is no dissatisfaction and the opposite side of dissatisfaction is that there is no dissatisfaction. In the two-factor theory, the factors that affect people’s work performance are devided into two aspects. The first one os called ” hygiene factors”. And the other one is called ” motivation factors”. These two aspects are independent of each other and they influence people’s work enthusiasm and motivation in different ways.

Firstly, the hygiene factors refer to these factors, which will cause the dissatisfaction of the employees. And the improvement of hygiene factors can just lift the employees’ dissatisfaction and can’s satisfy the employees and motivate their work enthusiasm. These factors include the working environment and conditions such as company policy, administration, relationships with supervisors, working conditions, wages, relationships with colleague, personal life, relationships with subordinate, status, security and so on. These factors refer to the negative factors of work and they are related with the work environment and condition. When these factors deteriorate to a level that is not accepted by the employees, the employees will be dissatisfied with their work. Although these factors are in a good level, this can just eliminate the employees’ dissatisfaction and can’t lead to a positive work attitude of the employees, which means a neutral state that the employees are not satisfied and also not dissatisfied. These factors can just maitain the present state. So they are called maintainance factor.

Secondly, the motivation factors are factors that make the employees feel satisfied, the improvement of these factors can not just lead to the employee’s satisfaction but also give the employees enough motivation, enhance the employee’s work motivation and improve their work productivity. These factors include work achievements, approval of working performance, attraction of the working itself, responsibilities, promotion, growth and so on. They refer to the employees’ positive feeling for work and they are related to the content of their work. These factors, which can bring the positive work attitude, satisfaction and work motivation of the employees are called motivation factors. If these factors are all gathered, the employees will have a great work motivation.

According to the view of the two-factor theory, the administrators of the company must know that the hygiene factors are necessary, without which there will be no satisfaction. And only the motivation factors can make the employees do a excellent work performance. The two-factor theory is designed for the goal of the employees’ satisfaction. The hygiene factors can satisfy the employees in the aspect of outside conditions and the motivation factors can satisfy them in the aspect of the work itself. The former one is for outside motivation and the latter one is for inside motivation. That is to say, according to two-factor theory, the word “satisfaction” must be paid to enough attention in order to motivate the employees effectively.

3.1.2Goal-setting theory

The goal-setting theory holds that the goal let people know what work they must accomplish, how to accomplish their work and how much effort they must pay. A clear goal will improve the employees’ productivity. And especially when the goal is with a certain difficulties but not set higher beyond employees’ capacity, a higher productivity can be achieved. In addition, a specific goal will be better for the employees to enhance their work performance and improve their work productivity. In the goal-setting theory, there is another important matter that should be paid enough attention to. That is the participation in the formulation of organizational goals of the employees.

3.2 Recommendation

3.2.1 Improving the challenge of the work

Repeating the same job day after day, the employees will be caught into the trouble and can’t escape from it. From the result of the questionnaire, it can be found that employees think that their works are lack of challenge. However, the appropriate challenge in the work will stimulate their ambition and keep their enthusiasm for their work. In order to improve the challenge of the work, Starbucks Beijing must take some effective measures.

Firstly, Starbucks Beijing can increase work standards of employees. After continuous exercise of work ability and their self-growth, the employees will show a higher productivity and be more skilled to handle the issues in their work. At that time, Starbucks Beijing can appropriately increase work demands of the employees. For example, at the right time and circumstances, the employees’ performance requirements should be improved, which will be followed by a appropriate standard of compensation awards.

Secondly, increasing the job content can also improve the challenge of the employee’s work. With the increase of job content, employees’ responsibilitied will increase and also the challenge of the work is improved. Then the employees will use more enegy and skill to work, which will enhance their work ability greatly. The employees will feel the interesting change of their work when the work content is increased. However, the increase of the work content mustn’t bring unnecessary trouble for the employees. Only the reasonable increase of job content can really serve to increase the work challengign. For example, establishing a team of employees. With these teams, employees are allowed to handle some difficult issues. Starbucks Beijing can assign some tasks about developing customers to the employees. With this kind of work, they can challenge their ability, intelligence,communicaition skill, and so on.

Thirdly, giving rights to the employees can also give them some challenges. Getting some rights, the employee will enter a new work field, in which he will handle some issues and load some responsibilities. Generally speaking, the employee will be motivated and load some responsibilities after getting some rights, which will improve their work motivation. So the employee will regard the rights as the reflection of his ability and the company’s affirmation of his work performance. There are variety of ways to give rights to employees. For example, give them the right to manage a team or take responsibility for a group job.

Generally speaking, in order to increase the challenge of the work, Starbucks Beijing can take measures in the aspect of improving work standards, increasing work content and giving rights to employees. Every employee likes to do a job full of reasonable challenge. So managers must spare no effort to provide the employees an opportunity to face with challenge.

3.2.2 Providing more opportunity for employees’ self-growth

In the questionnaire, most of the employees of Starbucks Beijing think that they have no opportunity for their self-growth in work., which is an important matter for a company of service industry. The development and growth of an organization should depend on the effort of all the staff instead of only one person’s effort. Sometimes, some managers may complain about the disability of the employees, which is a bottleneck problem in the development of the company. After a careful analysis, it can be found that the problem is not the disability of the employees. The problem is whether managers give the employees enough opportunity to exercise their abilities. In order to improve employees’ ability to meet the company’s demand, the company must take a reasonable measure and cultivate employees in some effective ways. As our growing process, we learn to walk.We try again and again. And at last we can stand steadily and then we can walk quickly. The process is an exercising process. The ability of the employee is not decided by one’s IQ. The work experience and enrichment of knowledge can alsi influence the work mind of an employee. When the employee does more and more work and load more and more responsibilities, he will be full of work experience and his work style will change a lot. That is one of the important problems of a company, which is called the management of human capital.

3.2.3 Providing goal-setting opportunity for employees

Through the goal-setting theory, it can be seen the great importance of goal-setting. And also in the questionnaire, employees also express that they believe that goal-setting is very important and they want to participate in the goal-setting process. Firstly, the goal must be specific and measurable. And then, the goal must be accepted by the superiors and subordinates. At last, the goal must be full and challenge and can be achiev