 Starbucks announced revisions on Thursday to the way the company schedules its 130,000 baristas, saying it wanted to improve “stability and consistency” in work hours week to week. The company intends to curb the much-loathed practice of “clopening,” or workers closing the store late at night and returning just a few hours later to reopen, wrote Cliff Burrows, the group president in charge of American stores, in an email to baristas across the country. He specified that all work hours must be posted at least one week in advance, a policy that has been only loosely followed in the past. Baristas with more than an hour’s commute will be given the option to transfer to more convenient locations, he wrote, adding that scheduling software will be revised to allow more input from managers. The changes came in response to an article on Wednesday in The New York Times about a single mother struggling to keep up with erratic hours set by automated software. “This has given us a real opportunity to hear partners’ voices and say, ‘Are we being clear enough, and are our intents and practices being followed?’ ” Mr. Burrows said in a phone interview. Though Mr. Burrows vowed in his letter to revise the company’s scheduling software, he could not say exactly how in the interview. The change comes amid a growing push to curb scheduling practices, enabled by sophisticated software, that can cause havoc in employees’... |
