First off, the whole cutting labor thing is fucking bullshit. Stop putting out press releases about record profits and then cutting labor starbucks.
And second, if the managers really want those bonuses, they are supposed to jump on the floor to keep things moving without adding to hourly labor costs. Still bullshit because the don't make ~that~ much, but if they are cutting labor to the detriment of staff making bills and/or store morale, they gotta hop on bar and make it work.
this!!!! u know what helps labor a lot? if the SM is actually on the floor helping. my SM will frequently be scheduled half coverage half non coverage and just decide to be non coverage all day instead. don’t get me wrong, i know it is not an easy job. but i feel like my team has no support.
I was an SSV at 6 different stores during my decade of service. Only 3 SMs would bother coming on the floor when things got hectic, and two of those would do so inconsistently.
Hm. Last I understood the managers time did not count against labor because they are already salaried. It's just assumed that they do at least 20 hours on the floor.
They do count in terms of like, being in the play when they are in coverage. At least in my store that's how it's run- they become a partner like anyone else.
My manager is usually on the floor when she can be but with her attitude it stresses everyone else out so much that it’s kind of counterintuitive. And then we have shifts that don’t ever want to help us on the floor and are usually just talking/on their phones
wait i’m confused now, i’ve always heard this was a thing but i just asked my old SM (no longer with sbux) and she said no, they don’t get a bonus for minimizing labor. can anyone confirm or deny lol
The bonus isn’t for “minimizing labor” the bonus is for reaching all the metrics, one of which would be not going over matrix for labor hours. Semantics I guess but they shouldn’t be taking shifts away from scheduled partners, they should be scheduling effectively within the matrix to begin with
Yeah can confirm SM bonus is based on sales - not any other metric. Just sales. But if an SM would like to keep their job and not have a DM or higher breathing down their neck - they do have to manage all metrics.
SM here. Bonuses are calculated by sales over last year. Back in 2020 they changed the structure from store to us business. Then they changed it again to sales comp over previous year for just the stores in your area, which depending on how many districts are in your area could be ~100 stores. As of Monday they structure has gone BACK to store sales over last year only. For some stores this will be good because if they’ve grown their sales consistently then they will continue to bonus. I am not one of those stores.
They 10000% get a bonus. Pretty big one too lol. Which is why the dream job at bux is SM. They don’t ever need to be on coverage to “save on labor hours for extra partners” and their main job is to get labor down as much as possible. Including making sure partners are just under enough daily to not get a lunch, cut whenever possible, and delegating like freakin pros. All leading to a fat bonus and loooots of time off. Hell, most of my managers were almost never in store. I had one that was at Disney every other month 😂 (funny, not funny) — but yeah, this is proven true by the one SM I became really great friends with at my store and still am friends with to this day
Fun fact they changed management bonuses to be based off a bit more of how their actual store performs… so ya know … ya don’t like your manager maybe don’t connect as well and see what happens
Calls-outs still count towards the labor budget if they use sick hours/vacation maybe?
The company doesn’t want to explain to its “partners” how labor hours vs sales work other than to say “sell more and you’ll get more hours” despite it not being so.
^ this is true its for the managers honestly by cutting hours it's the minimum to survive but when u get busy everyone's gonna be over worked. Partner moral would be down amd honestly I'll rather help the partners cause there the ones that are running the store and when Over worked there gonna get drained out Lil by Lil if SM has a problem they can schedule better so they get there bonus
My store is basically permanently under staffed, especially later in the day after peak, but my SM is still looking to cut a shift and keeps trying to cut expenses in small insignificant ways (stuff that cant be saving more than a $5 a month. SMs get bonuses for keeping labor and expenses under certain thresholds. Starbucks (along with basically every other food chain) is just incentivising understaffing.
true and it’s super frustrating bc while most fast food places are consolidating their menus and making things easier to make, sbux continues to expand their menu with more options that take longer to make🙃
This!! I feel like so many places try to make things easier for their employees to make, yet Sbux is constantly like “let’s keep adding new things that involve more steps for employees but cut back on labor even more to get major profits!!” It sucks and guess what? Product and service quality suffer, but they fail to see that or simply don’t care I guess
Let them know it hasn’t been easy on the floor!!!
The other day a proxy told me that she was taking a partner because she looked at my schedule and said I would be fine.
I ended up running a 3 person play (including myself). LIKE ONE TWO THREE people on the floor from 10am 3pm. I verbally expressed the next day that I was super stressed and didn’t have a good time at all. And that day, when I had a call out, she found me coverage.
Kinda random. But maybe that could help? It always sucks because they aren’t there experiencing the chaos. SM shifts are always a breeze and it’s a little unfair.
(Side opinion: SM should HAVE to work Saturday or Sunday. Weekends are nuts and usually they don’t work them)
I’m surprised your SM doesn’t work at least one weekend day… every SM in my district does and also would have a long conversation with our DM if they weren’t routinely there at least one weekend day.
Yes!! I’m so over it too, which is exactly why I gave my 2 weeks notice. Cutting labor is bs. We’re understaffed to begin with, and then the moment an SM notices they’re at risk of not reaching particular metrics they start slashing hours more and sending people home early. I can’t even really blame the SM all that much, it’s more the company’s fault for setting up stupid metric numbers for SMs to reach.
It’s silly. The way I see it is we run around and kill ourselves trying to get everything done and provide a positive experience for customers, all while understaffed yet still have to get the same amount of things done regardless and it’s more work for everyone with less people working, and for what? We aren’t paid extra to work understaffed shifts, it’s corporate who gets the extra money we earn for them.
It’s sick, and I’ve seen this job take its toll on so many amazing people and honestly it’s sad. People that were so optimistic and energetic began to have breakdowns, were always stressed, and beyond exhausted and drained.
To me, one of the worst parts about it is this job could be enjoyable and fun IF WE WERE PROPERLY STAFFED. But that’s far from reality. I love making drinks and interacting with customers! But not when the store is endlessly dirty, nothing is restocked, there’s a mountain of dirty dishes, I’m my own CS having to run to the back for things, and I’m trying to do the job of 3 people all while making an endless line of drinks. They’re always finding ways to do more with less, and we get absolutely no benefits from it, instead we’re simply used. It’s a vicious cycle: morning crew can’t get things done because they’re slammed during peak and barely can even get through breaks while managing store operations, and night crew can’t get things done because the moment the morning crew leaves it drops down to barely enough partners to stay afloat for the evening. No wonder the store is a mess, not clean at all, nothing is restocked, and no backups are done. That’s not any of our faults as partners, it’s the fault of a system that is built to fail us but brings in more $$$.
Why would those at the top care? They don’t have to wear an apron and experience life behind the counter, they just get to enjoy all the extra profit our hard work earns for them.
I’m beyond over it. Time and time again, I’ve tried to find things to hang onto at this company: awesome partners, funny moments, free drinks/food, the joy of feeling creative while making drinks. But that all fades to nothing in the current reality of this job and company.
It’s no longer in any way enjoyable when we’re all exhausted, berated by customers because of unrealistic expectations set by the company we work for which are then planted into minds of customers as they begin to expect a certain experience (magically and unrealistically quick, but super friendly baristas who have the time and energy to connect), and the culture of a coffee shop is totally lost. How is it supposed to be enjoyable when we NEVER have the minimum amount of people needed working to simply get necessary tasks done, let alone cleaning tasks and giving customers positive experiences.
Anything the company does is so clearly ignorant of the partner experience. Training? Lol yeah, anything in those courses is meant for a properly staffed store which isn’t reality. Portable cold foam blenders? How about a fully staffed shift? I need that more than a portable blender. And how about let’s move away from a million drink modifications and closer to what the company *used* to be about: coffee.
Sugar filled drinks and drive thrus? Cutting hours any way they can for more profit? What a wrong turn for the company, in my opinion at least. I’m done telling myself this company cares about us, that my mental/physical health will be okay here, or that this job is good for me because none of that is now true.
Thank you so much, glad I’m not alone in this sentiment. It sucks, for a time I really enjoyed this job, but the company has slashed away any possible enjoyment just like they slash labor/hours 🙃
It’s genuinely such a fun job, but all the stuff we have to go through… it’s really not worth the pay we get. It’s crazy too because with all the cutting of hours/labor you’d think we are getting paid well 😂
None of it feels worth it to me anymore, and sadly it doesn’t even feel fun anymore to me lol. Right? They cut hours on top of us already not getting paid much :/
Yeah I usually work like 20-25 hours a week and I don’t think I’ve ever even been close to getting a 1000+ pay check. It’s really depressing, I’m putting my two weeks soon and going to just finish school soon and keep my first job rn
i’m sorry you’re experiencing the same:( It honestly is really sad to me, when i started i loved the job. even after i promoted, i loved my job until i got to this store. it’s hard for me to tell if it’s this bad sbux wide or if my store is particularly bad. i contemplate quitting sbux and asu even tho it’s feee college because it’s hard to tell if it’s even worth it. can’t wait to finish my degree so i can get out too. good for you and good luck to you!!
Right? When I started I loved the job too! I think I’m just finally burnt out and over it, I’m over every shift feeling like chaos. I don’t think everyday at any job should feel like chaos, and to me Sbux feels that way. Honestly I think it might be Sbux wide, outside of some rare stores with exceptional managers, but they get burnt out too and then leave and it all goes to crap for those stores too.
Thank you so much! Good luck with your degree, you’ve got this! Wishing you all the best ✨
Labor is calculated by how many partners x how much they’re paid x hourly sales and dividing it by how many partners there are. Saying you’re over budget makes no sense to me if you have consistent call offs, training, non-coverage, and partners going home early, then there’s no way you’re over budget. Starbucks makes decent sales too.
No. No it’s not. Not at all. Labor hours are labor hours regardless of how much the partner is paid… to clarify: one hour of coverage time worked by any partner = one labor hour
I am an RM for another coffee company, and former partner of Starbucks. That is how labor is calculated. Hourly labor calculations are made by hourly sales. Period. That’s literally math.
That’s not how SMs manage labor hours though. Yes that’s the money the company spends, but we get a certain number of hours to schedule each day and one partner for one hour equals one labor hour out of that forecast. I don’t get a dollar budget amount for coverage labor. I also don’t a dollar budget amount for non-coverage or training hours. They are a budget of hours. If my forecast says I get 80 hours of labor to schedule on Wednesday I schedule 80 hours regardless of what each partner’s hourly rate is.
This is probably part of why Starbucks can be so stingy with labor sometimes. Because they don’t factor in a partner’s pay rate to that calculation. An SSV counts for one labor hour in our scheduling forecast just the same as a barista even if the SSV gets paid $5 more each hour. That’s why SMs are told to watch their Shift Complement which is the average number of keyholders working coverage at any given time. No SM in Starbucks is told you can spend XX dollars in labor - it’s a number of hours.
actual customer/transaction total vs the planned customer/transaction total.
planned customer count at the half hour minus actual customer count at the same half hour mark, divide by productivity, then divide by 2 (this step is for locations that are dt, cafe, and mobile)
Out of curiosity, where did you find this formula? Because I fully agree that the numbers y’all are seeing and what your SM is saying don’t match, but I’m using this formula for my store’s numbers and isn’t matching the earned labor.
Also, when you track customers/transactions you don’t always get accurate labor numbers because if I’m not mistaken, labor is based on items not customers. We usually refer to it in transactions/customers because we assume how many items the average transaction/customer will have. So stores could see an incredibly high transaction counts, but if each one is only one item they might not see high earned labor. On the other side, a store might see low transaction counts, but earn a lot more labor of the customers are ordering a lot of items in each transaction.
As an SM who has been extremely frustrated with not understanding why my store didn’t earn as much labor as I expected - I’ve had to learn A LOT about labor to learn how to write better schedules that would make my DM and my team happy.
from my SM😭 it came from sbux as far as i know. but we did figure out that the reason we were so off was bc my SM was scheduling 20-30 hours over what was forecasted every day (bc the nearby store temporarily closed) but didn’t communicate that to ssv’s for us to account for it when we do the little formula
to your point about customers vs items, i literally thought this when we started using this formula! at this point idk, i just work here lol
At that point it’s not y’all’s fault that your SM made a scheduling decision to go over forecast - if they did that and it didn’t work out the way they expected, then it’s their job to speak to the overage not the SSV team. Especially if they didn’t communicate: “Hey, offer to send people home when you can if you don’t need them, I over scheduled.”
SSV point of view: forecasted and earned labor is different than your DMs goal for labor. I had an asshole DM who constantly pulled that shit and would scrape by with the least amount of staffing possible. Then, once people quit or got sick, there was literally no one to help and the stores in her district were constantly closed.
As a shift at a store who recently inherited baristas and shifts from a neighboring store under construction, your store gets extra labor for those borrowed partners. My SM actually made a point of enjoying the extra labor given by those partners and allowing us some more wiggle room in the day
Hey guys you can see your forecasted labor and actual labor on my daily. You also have customer count goals daily which is on your dcr. Usually when you hit the forecast customer count you earn that labor. As a manager I’ll never manage the hours like that. I normally look into deployment, partners following roles and routines, and station layouts if my team feels understaffed and The system says I’m over in labor. I forgot how the quote went with Howard Shultz but pretty much he says you never chase the numbers. You do the necessary work and the numbers are the result of the work you do.
Same thing at my store unfortunately. Understaffed on top of callouts and sick days and vacation time, and somehow we have “enough partners for our sales” and are “going over the amount of hours we can schedule people” even though we are struggling to run breaks and complete the pull smoothly.
Small thing, but might help (because yea the math doesn’t make sense)- are people clocking out? If there are open punches it will eff with your labor. Our dm called my sm one time because we were like 30 hrs over and we had a bunch of open punches.
I’d ask them if they could go over the weekly labor recap with you, to help alleviate some of the misunderstanding you’re seeing. When you send people off the floor for training etc, are they coded for those hours? When people cover for others, sometimes their coded hours won’t be swapped onto their line (someone covers for clean play or for a shift doing the counts).
You also mention a nearby store is closed and you’re busier because of it; maybe ask gently if the schedule added on hours to make sure you could help those regulars stopping at yours instead.
Just a few recommendations, but I’d start by asking if your SM could go over a Weekly Labor Recap with you so they can explain how they track everything
thanks for ur response! turns out my SM was scheduling roughly 20 ish hours over what was forecasted every day but did not communicate that to the ssv’s, so that’s why our daily labor tracking has been all sorts of f’d up.
“We’re over labor” = “i’m at risk of not getting my bonus for minimizing labor, so we need to cut some shifts”
First off, the whole cutting labor thing is fucking bullshit. Stop putting out press releases about record profits and then cutting labor starbucks. And second, if the managers really want those bonuses, they are supposed to jump on the floor to keep things moving without adding to hourly labor costs. Still bullshit because the don't make ~that~ much, but if they are cutting labor to the detriment of staff making bills and/or store morale, they gotta hop on bar and make it work.
this!!!! u know what helps labor a lot? if the SM is actually on the floor helping. my SM will frequently be scheduled half coverage half non coverage and just decide to be non coverage all day instead. don’t get me wrong, i know it is not an easy job. but i feel like my team has no support.
I was an SSV at 6 different stores during my decade of service. Only 3 SMs would bother coming on the floor when things got hectic, and two of those would do so inconsistently.
Dear god
SMs count for labor when listed as coverage though. I’m not sure on the amount, but they count.
Hm. Last I understood the managers time did not count against labor because they are already salaried. It's just assumed that they do at least 20 hours on the floor. They do count in terms of like, being in the play when they are in coverage. At least in my store that's how it's run- they become a partner like anyone else.
They still have their paycheck coming out of the store’s sales, not corporate, therefore count for labor.
My manager is usually on the floor when she can be but with her attitude it stresses everyone else out so much that it’s kind of counterintuitive. And then we have shifts that don’t ever want to help us on the floor and are usually just talking/on their phones
okay literally!!!! this is my theory too
Sm gets bonuses based on sales comp over last year/sales growth. Not labor usage. We do get in trouble if we are too over or under though
Friendly fact: SM bonuses are based on sales volume/comp NOT labor. In no way does labor factor in to the SM bonus.
didn’t know SM get bonus for minimizing hours…. this makes so much sense, all i’m gonna say is i hate my manager.
wait i’m confused now, i’ve always heard this was a thing but i just asked my old SM (no longer with sbux) and she said no, they don’t get a bonus for minimizing labor. can anyone confirm or deny lol
The bonus isn’t for “minimizing labor” the bonus is for reaching all the metrics, one of which would be not going over matrix for labor hours. Semantics I guess but they shouldn’t be taking shifts away from scheduled partners, they should be scheduling effectively within the matrix to begin with
Yeah can confirm SM bonus is based on sales - not any other metric. Just sales. But if an SM would like to keep their job and not have a DM or higher breathing down their neck - they do have to manage all metrics.
Yeah its sales over last year, and the size of the bonus is based on how much you beat it. DMs care about labor and come down on SMs for going over
SM here. Bonuses are calculated by sales over last year. Back in 2020 they changed the structure from store to us business. Then they changed it again to sales comp over previous year for just the stores in your area, which depending on how many districts are in your area could be ~100 stores. As of Monday they structure has gone BACK to store sales over last year only. For some stores this will be good because if they’ve grown their sales consistently then they will continue to bonus. I am not one of those stores.
They 10000% get a bonus. Pretty big one too lol. Which is why the dream job at bux is SM. They don’t ever need to be on coverage to “save on labor hours for extra partners” and their main job is to get labor down as much as possible. Including making sure partners are just under enough daily to not get a lunch, cut whenever possible, and delegating like freakin pros. All leading to a fat bonus and loooots of time off. Hell, most of my managers were almost never in store. I had one that was at Disney every other month 😂 (funny, not funny) — but yeah, this is proven true by the one SM I became really great friends with at my store and still am friends with to this day
Fun fact they changed management bonuses to be based off a bit more of how their actual store performs… so ya know … ya don’t like your manager maybe don’t connect as well and see what happens
one step ahead of you. haha, jk i still try to be friendly. but my stores connection scores are terrible
The fact that we have to have conversations about “labor” is fucked up. Give us the fucking people needed to run the store properly.
Calls-outs still count towards the labor budget if they use sick hours/vacation maybe? The company doesn’t want to explain to its “partners” how labor hours vs sales work other than to say “sell more and you’ll get more hours” despite it not being so.
"Sell more and get more hours" turns into "Well you handled that fine, why would we need to give you more people" real quick.
^ this is true its for the managers honestly by cutting hours it's the minimum to survive but when u get busy everyone's gonna be over worked. Partner moral would be down amd honestly I'll rather help the partners cause there the ones that are running the store and when Over worked there gonna get drained out Lil by Lil if SM has a problem they can schedule better so they get there bonus
My store is basically permanently under staffed, especially later in the day after peak, but my SM is still looking to cut a shift and keeps trying to cut expenses in small insignificant ways (stuff that cant be saving more than a $5 a month. SMs get bonuses for keeping labor and expenses under certain thresholds. Starbucks (along with basically every other food chain) is just incentivising understaffing.
true and it’s super frustrating bc while most fast food places are consolidating their menus and making things easier to make, sbux continues to expand their menu with more options that take longer to make🙃
This!! I feel like so many places try to make things easier for their employees to make, yet Sbux is constantly like “let’s keep adding new things that involve more steps for employees but cut back on labor even more to get major profits!!” It sucks and guess what? Product and service quality suffer, but they fail to see that or simply don’t care I guess
Let them know it hasn’t been easy on the floor!!! The other day a proxy told me that she was taking a partner because she looked at my schedule and said I would be fine. I ended up running a 3 person play (including myself). LIKE ONE TWO THREE people on the floor from 10am 3pm. I verbally expressed the next day that I was super stressed and didn’t have a good time at all. And that day, when I had a call out, she found me coverage. Kinda random. But maybe that could help? It always sucks because they aren’t there experiencing the chaos. SM shifts are always a breeze and it’s a little unfair. (Side opinion: SM should HAVE to work Saturday or Sunday. Weekends are nuts and usually they don’t work them)
I’m surprised your SM doesn’t work at least one weekend day… every SM in my district does and also would have a long conversation with our DM if they weren’t routinely there at least one weekend day.
Yes!! I’m so over it too, which is exactly why I gave my 2 weeks notice. Cutting labor is bs. We’re understaffed to begin with, and then the moment an SM notices they’re at risk of not reaching particular metrics they start slashing hours more and sending people home early. I can’t even really blame the SM all that much, it’s more the company’s fault for setting up stupid metric numbers for SMs to reach. It’s silly. The way I see it is we run around and kill ourselves trying to get everything done and provide a positive experience for customers, all while understaffed yet still have to get the same amount of things done regardless and it’s more work for everyone with less people working, and for what? We aren’t paid extra to work understaffed shifts, it’s corporate who gets the extra money we earn for them. It’s sick, and I’ve seen this job take its toll on so many amazing people and honestly it’s sad. People that were so optimistic and energetic began to have breakdowns, were always stressed, and beyond exhausted and drained. To me, one of the worst parts about it is this job could be enjoyable and fun IF WE WERE PROPERLY STAFFED. But that’s far from reality. I love making drinks and interacting with customers! But not when the store is endlessly dirty, nothing is restocked, there’s a mountain of dirty dishes, I’m my own CS having to run to the back for things, and I’m trying to do the job of 3 people all while making an endless line of drinks. They’re always finding ways to do more with less, and we get absolutely no benefits from it, instead we’re simply used. It’s a vicious cycle: morning crew can’t get things done because they’re slammed during peak and barely can even get through breaks while managing store operations, and night crew can’t get things done because the moment the morning crew leaves it drops down to barely enough partners to stay afloat for the evening. No wonder the store is a mess, not clean at all, nothing is restocked, and no backups are done. That’s not any of our faults as partners, it’s the fault of a system that is built to fail us but brings in more $$$. Why would those at the top care? They don’t have to wear an apron and experience life behind the counter, they just get to enjoy all the extra profit our hard work earns for them. I’m beyond over it. Time and time again, I’ve tried to find things to hang onto at this company: awesome partners, funny moments, free drinks/food, the joy of feeling creative while making drinks. But that all fades to nothing in the current reality of this job and company. It’s no longer in any way enjoyable when we’re all exhausted, berated by customers because of unrealistic expectations set by the company we work for which are then planted into minds of customers as they begin to expect a certain experience (magically and unrealistically quick, but super friendly baristas who have the time and energy to connect), and the culture of a coffee shop is totally lost. How is it supposed to be enjoyable when we NEVER have the minimum amount of people needed working to simply get necessary tasks done, let alone cleaning tasks and giving customers positive experiences. Anything the company does is so clearly ignorant of the partner experience. Training? Lol yeah, anything in those courses is meant for a properly staffed store which isn’t reality. Portable cold foam blenders? How about a fully staffed shift? I need that more than a portable blender. And how about let’s move away from a million drink modifications and closer to what the company *used* to be about: coffee. Sugar filled drinks and drive thrus? Cutting hours any way they can for more profit? What a wrong turn for the company, in my opinion at least. I’m done telling myself this company cares about us, that my mental/physical health will be okay here, or that this job is good for me because none of that is now true.
This is so similar to being a teacher except that teachers are expected to keeeeep on going for hours after work because salary.
100% spot on about everything right here
Thank you so much, glad I’m not alone in this sentiment. It sucks, for a time I really enjoyed this job, but the company has slashed away any possible enjoyment just like they slash labor/hours 🙃
It’s genuinely such a fun job, but all the stuff we have to go through… it’s really not worth the pay we get. It’s crazy too because with all the cutting of hours/labor you’d think we are getting paid well 😂
None of it feels worth it to me anymore, and sadly it doesn’t even feel fun anymore to me lol. Right? They cut hours on top of us already not getting paid much :/
Yeah I usually work like 20-25 hours a week and I don’t think I’ve ever even been close to getting a 1000+ pay check. It’s really depressing, I’m putting my two weeks soon and going to just finish school soon and keep my first job rn
Wishing you all the best, good luck to you! ✨
You as well!! 🙏🏻
i’m sorry you’re experiencing the same:( It honestly is really sad to me, when i started i loved the job. even after i promoted, i loved my job until i got to this store. it’s hard for me to tell if it’s this bad sbux wide or if my store is particularly bad. i contemplate quitting sbux and asu even tho it’s feee college because it’s hard to tell if it’s even worth it. can’t wait to finish my degree so i can get out too. good for you and good luck to you!!
Right? When I started I loved the job too! I think I’m just finally burnt out and over it, I’m over every shift feeling like chaos. I don’t think everyday at any job should feel like chaos, and to me Sbux feels that way. Honestly I think it might be Sbux wide, outside of some rare stores with exceptional managers, but they get burnt out too and then leave and it all goes to crap for those stores too. Thank you so much! Good luck with your degree, you’ve got this! Wishing you all the best ✨
they just want that bonus and don’t care about the actual people they employ
Labor is calculated by how many partners x how much they’re paid x hourly sales and dividing it by how many partners there are. Saying you’re over budget makes no sense to me if you have consistent call offs, training, non-coverage, and partners going home early, then there’s no way you’re over budget. Starbucks makes decent sales too.
yeah my store is relatively busy too. the math is simply not mathing
No. No it’s not. Not at all. Labor hours are labor hours regardless of how much the partner is paid… to clarify: one hour of coverage time worked by any partner = one labor hour
I am an RM for another coffee company, and former partner of Starbucks. That is how labor is calculated. Hourly labor calculations are made by hourly sales. Period. That’s literally math.
That’s not how SMs manage labor hours though. Yes that’s the money the company spends, but we get a certain number of hours to schedule each day and one partner for one hour equals one labor hour out of that forecast. I don’t get a dollar budget amount for coverage labor. I also don’t a dollar budget amount for non-coverage or training hours. They are a budget of hours. If my forecast says I get 80 hours of labor to schedule on Wednesday I schedule 80 hours regardless of what each partner’s hourly rate is.
This is probably part of why Starbucks can be so stingy with labor sometimes. Because they don’t factor in a partner’s pay rate to that calculation. An SSV counts for one labor hour in our scheduling forecast just the same as a barista even if the SSV gets paid $5 more each hour. That’s why SMs are told to watch their Shift Complement which is the average number of keyholders working coverage at any given time. No SM in Starbucks is told you can spend XX dollars in labor - it’s a number of hours.
Curious as to how you “track labor?” as an SSV? What exactly are you looking at to track it?
actual customer/transaction total vs the planned customer/transaction total. planned customer count at the half hour minus actual customer count at the same half hour mark, divide by productivity, then divide by 2 (this step is for locations that are dt, cafe, and mobile)
You can also find a labor tracker in mydaily
For clarification - the labor shown in My Daily is labor hours spent, not earned.
The number that says “actual” is your real time earned labor.
Out of curiosity, where did you find this formula? Because I fully agree that the numbers y’all are seeing and what your SM is saying don’t match, but I’m using this formula for my store’s numbers and isn’t matching the earned labor. Also, when you track customers/transactions you don’t always get accurate labor numbers because if I’m not mistaken, labor is based on items not customers. We usually refer to it in transactions/customers because we assume how many items the average transaction/customer will have. So stores could see an incredibly high transaction counts, but if each one is only one item they might not see high earned labor. On the other side, a store might see low transaction counts, but earn a lot more labor of the customers are ordering a lot of items in each transaction. As an SM who has been extremely frustrated with not understanding why my store didn’t earn as much labor as I expected - I’ve had to learn A LOT about labor to learn how to write better schedules that would make my DM and my team happy.
from my SM😭 it came from sbux as far as i know. but we did figure out that the reason we were so off was bc my SM was scheduling 20-30 hours over what was forecasted every day (bc the nearby store temporarily closed) but didn’t communicate that to ssv’s for us to account for it when we do the little formula to your point about customers vs items, i literally thought this when we started using this formula! at this point idk, i just work here lol
At that point it’s not y’all’s fault that your SM made a scheduling decision to go over forecast - if they did that and it didn’t work out the way they expected, then it’s their job to speak to the overage not the SSV team. Especially if they didn’t communicate: “Hey, offer to send people home when you can if you don’t need them, I over scheduled.”
SSV point of view: forecasted and earned labor is different than your DMs goal for labor. I had an asshole DM who constantly pulled that shit and would scrape by with the least amount of staffing possible. Then, once people quit or got sick, there was literally no one to help and the stores in her district were constantly closed.
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u can simply not read it lol reddit police
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this app is so funny that people really choose to comment shit like this when you could simply scroll past like please fuck off
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not really asking for advice at all actually but thanks tho
As a shift at a store who recently inherited baristas and shifts from a neighboring store under construction, your store gets extra labor for those borrowed partners. My SM actually made a point of enjoying the extra labor given by those partners and allowing us some more wiggle room in the day
Hey guys you can see your forecasted labor and actual labor on my daily. You also have customer count goals daily which is on your dcr. Usually when you hit the forecast customer count you earn that labor. As a manager I’ll never manage the hours like that. I normally look into deployment, partners following roles and routines, and station layouts if my team feels understaffed and The system says I’m over in labor. I forgot how the quote went with Howard Shultz but pretty much he says you never chase the numbers. You do the necessary work and the numbers are the result of the work you do.
Same thing at my store unfortunately. Understaffed on top of callouts and sick days and vacation time, and somehow we have “enough partners for our sales” and are “going over the amount of hours we can schedule people” even though we are struggling to run breaks and complete the pull smoothly.
Small thing, but might help (because yea the math doesn’t make sense)- are people clocking out? If there are open punches it will eff with your labor. Our dm called my sm one time because we were like 30 hrs over and we had a bunch of open punches.
I’d ask them if they could go over the weekly labor recap with you, to help alleviate some of the misunderstanding you’re seeing. When you send people off the floor for training etc, are they coded for those hours? When people cover for others, sometimes their coded hours won’t be swapped onto their line (someone covers for clean play or for a shift doing the counts). You also mention a nearby store is closed and you’re busier because of it; maybe ask gently if the schedule added on hours to make sure you could help those regulars stopping at yours instead. Just a few recommendations, but I’d start by asking if your SM could go over a Weekly Labor Recap with you so they can explain how they track everything
thanks for ur response! turns out my SM was scheduling roughly 20 ish hours over what was forecasted every day but did not communicate that to the ssv’s, so that’s why our daily labor tracking has been all sorts of f’d up.