Starbucks Barista Australia Report Free Essay

Recruitment strategy

Key issues

The results of recruitment are influenced and limited by a variety of factors, including internal factors and external factors. One of the external factors that significantly affect Starbucks’ recruitment strategy is the labor market. For instance, the unemployment rate in Australia labor market is 5.4% in June 2018 (Australian Labour Market Update July 2018, 2018). The bigger portion of the unemployed people are made are the youths. Essentially, the youths make up the productive population that companies target to employ into their companies. Specifically, the demand and supply of candidates in the labor market is critical in determining an organization’s recruitment strategy (Australia, n.d.). Since Australia has a small unemployment rate, it makes it have a high demand and a less supply of candidates in its labor candidates. Therefore, the high demand for candidates in Australia makes Starbucks Barista face a high competition of the potential candidates to employ. Also, the low rate of unemployment also suggests that there is a low supply of candidates in the labor industry (Borland, 2015). Actually, the lower the supply rate of candidates, the higher the competition for candidates by organizations including Starbucks Barista. Starbucks’ recruitment strategy is also affected by the low supply of prospective candidates in the Australian labor market (Starbucks_Q4_FY18_Earnings_Release.pdf, n.d.). This type of competition due to a shortage of supply of candidates and the high demand for labor by its competitors in their coffee retail industry (Borland, 2015).

Another factor affecting Starbucks recruitment strategy is the existing Australian employment policies. Some Australian employment policies significantly affect the supply and demand of candidates in the labor market. For instance, the policy that grants unemployed youths with unemployment marginal tax rates which consequentially discourages youths to take jobs or be employed as they tend to prefer enjoying the marginal tax rates granted to them. Australia has an effective marginal tax rate, as well as the lack of incentives or limited incentives, have discouraged the unemployed people especially the youths from accepting to take up employment, especially part-time employment (Borland, 2015). As a result, this has contributed to the increasing unemployment in Australia. Actually, in Australia, there is an effective 100% marginal tax rate of the unemployment benefits for every dollar acquired above $3 on a weekly basis which offers no incentive to those unemployed to work except is they can earn more than those under the employment benefit (Mohanty, Tanton, Vidyattama, & Thurecht, 2016). Therefore, this contributes to the scarcity of the supply of candidates thus affecting Starbucks’ Barista recruitment strategy.

Recommended recruitment approach

Since the environment that Starbucks Barista operates in has a small unemployed population characterized with high demand and low supply rate of candidates in the labor market leading to high competition for candidates in the coffee retail industry, Starbucks should seek to carry out consistent inclusive job adverts. This can be done through inclusive job adverts and also programmatic advertising. Such adverts will be conducted through the media such as TV, radio, and billboards (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). They should also use social media to attract potential candidates. This is because social media has many users thus enabling them to reach their target audience. Majority users of social media are the youths who are the productive population and make potential candidates in the labor market which attracts organizations to employ them. Frequent and consistent advertisements will increase the chances of getting more candidates in a highly competitive environment with less supply of candidates. Moreover, Starbucks should also seek to use the employee referrals strategy (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). They should use the connection of their employees to refer them potential and competent candidates. This will enable the potential candidates to earn trust from the employees whom they could be friends. This strategy will enable this organization to get employees easily despite the low supply of candidates, therefore, enabling it to thrive in the industry. 

Selection strategy

Key issues

Another key issue faced after attracting candidates is to determine the appropriate strategy to select the right and qualified candidates. The organization faces a big challenge in selecting the best candidates who will contribute to the success of the organization (Starbucks_Q4_FY18_Earnings_Release.pdf, n.d.). Therefore, it is important to establish a proper and effective selection criteria and selection approach in order to ensure that the right candidates are employed.

Selection criteria

A proper and effective selection criterion has to be established in order to recruit the best talent and the right employees that are needed in the company. The first step will involve assessing the level of knowledge that the candidate has about food safety in Australia.  Assessing the level of knowledge that the candidates have on food safety is critical because this company operates in the coffee retail industry dealing in food, therefore, all staff needs to know about food safety. Another knowledge that needs to be assessed is the candidates’ professional knowledge in coffee retail and making (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). It is important that the candidate has to be knowledgeable and competent in preparing and selling coffee. The selection will be based on their level of understanding and knowledge on relevant on the over coffee retail operations.

Selection of the candidates will also be based on their individual skills relevant to coffee retail and coffee making amongst other food sold in the organization. There are specific skills that have to be assessed. The first skill the candidates will be assessed their expertise levels of food and coffee making skills. This is critical in ensuring that the best candidate that will facilitate the improvement of services and products in the organization is selected. This will help in promoting productivity and also help in saving cost for employee training since the best talent is acquired which does not need training (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). Another skill that will be assessed is cash management and cashier work skills. This will enable the organization to determine if the candidate has the appropriate skills needed that will promote proper and efficient cash management. Another critical skill that needs to be assessed is teamwork. The best candidate that should be selected is one who has efficient teamwork skills.

Another aspect to consider when selecting candidates is their individual abilities. One of the abilities that need to be assessed when selecting candidates is their ability to orally communicate efficiently. Communication is essential in the organization and for the work process to go on well and efficiently; all employees should have the ability to communicate effectively (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). Moreover, the candidates will be assessed on their strength on their ability to deal with customer relations. A candidate who knows how to establish a good relationship with the customers is highly valuable and should be selected.

Recommended selection approach

Implementation

To effectively implement the recommended recruitment and selection approaches, there are a number of aspects that needs to be considered. First, in order to manage to attract talented candidate in this competitive environment, employer branding has to be done (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). Employer branding will help to make Starbucks stand out from other companies thus attracting more and qualified candidates. This is the most critical aspect that Starbucks should exploit in order to thrive in this environment characterized by a low supply of candidates in the labor market.

In the implementation phase, it is also critical that Starbucks’ managers’ need to evaluate the efficacy of the advertising methods utilized in the recruitment strategy (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). It is important to assess whether the advertisement methods and media are appropriate and effective so that those that are determined to be ineffective can be replaced with other methods that are more effective. Moreover, the cost of advertising needs to be assessed so as to plan and budget for them so as to ensure that everything goes smoothly.

Moreover, diversity plays a big role in ensuring the success of an organization. Therefore, in the implementation phase, Starbucks should ensure that it observes diversity by making sure that it recruits candidates from various cultures and races (Bhattacharya et al., 2016). Also, it should ensure that candidates of both gender males and females are recruited and the number of these candidates should be balanced. Diversity in a workplace helps in bringing diverse expertise and knowledge which is important in ensuring the success of the organization.

To sum it all, it is evident that Australia has a high demand and low supply of candidates in the labor market. Therefore, there is high competition for candidates among companies. Therefore, in order for Starbucks Barista to outstand and find candidates to recruit, it needs proper and innovative recruitment and selection strategy that is suitable to the Australian environment. In essence, the recommend recruitment and selection strategy for Starbucks Barista is viable and it should adopt it in order to achieve its recruitment objectives.