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I keep seeing stories on X about Starbucks employees angry over a new dress code. So, I looked it up:
The more defined color palette includes any solid black short and long-sleeved crewneck, collared, or button-up shirts, and any shade of khaki, black, or blue denim bottoms. We’re also making a new line of company-branded t-shirts available to partners, who will receive two at no cost – including partner network options.
This is direct from the Starbucks site. Link
So, basically, they can wear jeans and a black t-shirt. I’m not sure I've ever had an adult job where that would have been OK. So what’s the beef?
“Starbucks has lost its way. Instead of listening to baristas who make the Starbucks experience what it is, they are focused on all the wrong things, like implementing a restrictive new dress code,” said Paige Summers, a Starbucks shift supervisor from Hanover, Maryland. “Customers don’t care what color our clothes are when they’re waiting 30 minutes for a latte.”
The company unilaterally enacted the policy without bargaining with Workers United, according to Jasmine Leli, a union bargaining delegate and Starbucks barista based in Buffalo, New York. She argues the dress code distracts the company from addressing key issues impacting staff by instead focusing on something trivial.
Apparently, Starbucks has been trying to negotiate a contract with unionized workers for some time. The company says less than 1 percent of its workers are involved. I remember about 25 years ago, unionized meat cutters went on strike at South Texas Albertsons over something. The company’s response? Close all the stores.
Discussion (20)
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Oh, those poor workers! Someone must rescue them! (Some people need to get a life...)
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Entitled bunch, aren't they?
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The Starbucks experience is to jabber in some pseudo language for the privilege of overpaying for what I want: large coffee, black, hold the insipid political engagement.
If I order and am served standing up, my tip is "get a real job."
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I do know that black shirts are common among food service workers, especially customer-facing employees. Often they're required to wear black pants as well, but I guess since Starbucks customers normally see the workers only from the waist up, I can see why the company didn't push a common color bottom.
At the Starbucks website linked, the company notes that the objective is to get the company-identifying green aprons to stand out to customers. So it's reasonable they want to minimize clothing background distractions and color or pattern conflict. Presenting a consistent experience to the customer is an important part of retail - the building, the decor, the signage, the displays, and yes, the employees' appearance.
Color on employees is important to a retailer. Sometime wear a bright red polo shirt into a Target store, and see how often people assume you work there!
My son-in-law (age 42) does wear a t-shirt and jeans to work. But he's a research scientist who never sees a customer (and he hopes no one other than his fellow researchers). And research scientists can be a different breed. At my last job I worked with a building full of them. Sometimes it was a challenge just to get them to wear shoes. Clothing is far down on their interest hierarchy. But that's research scientists, not customer-facing service providers.
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This is one of those arguments that doesn't really work. If the matter of the dress code is all that "trivial," then why make such a stink about the fact that the company has changed it? Why not refuse to be distracted by trivialities, and keep focused on what you think are the "key issues" yourself?
Apparently the idea behind the almost monochromatic, almost uniform, is to make the green apron that Starbucks employees wear stand out more. From a "branding" and recognizability standpoint, that makes perfect sense to me. But then I never went to work in the morning with the idea that the organizations I worked for over the course of almost forty years were there to facilitate my right to fly my own freak flag so I could stand out from the crowd.
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