The Wall Street Journal posted a story about Starbucks yesterday. To sum it up: Starbucks is looking into ways to make more money. No surprise there! With a quarter of every dollar that crosses the counter going towards employee pay (we are talking about $2.5 Billion per year!), it’s also not surprising that they are looking for ways to sell the same amount of coffee with less time spent behind the counter.
Finding ways to work efficiently is a good thing, it’s the core of how we are all able to live more enjoyable lives than our ancestors did. Imagine if we still had to hunt and gather for our dinners, it would take hours out of your day to find a good meal. Instead, we can take a walk to the supermarket and pick from a variety of fresh dinners! All of this convenience and abundance stems from one simple idea: if we can find a way to spend less time tomorrow on the work we did today, and get the same result, we’ve found something good!
A more efficient Starbucks store, one that makes more money while spending the same or less money means more good coffee for all involved, customers and employees. Who would refuse more good coffee for less money? Who would refuse a supermarket stocked with all manners of dinner for a sparse prairie and endless hours of work to even find something worth eating?
Of course, there is a catch: if the increase in efficiency means that the people who work at the store are unhappy, or feel like they are being used by their employer in some kind of numbers game, who wins? What’s the point of increased efficiency and more good coffee for all if the people involved are not enjoying their time at the store? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend endless hours hunting and gathering than feel like I’m just a cog in the big machine my employer uses to line their pockets. How do you strike a balance between increasing efficiency, making more of good things for everyone, and living your life, living how you want to, exploring the world on your terms?
That’s what HaveMyShift is about! Stephen and I set out to find a way for people to strike that balance, and to allow people to strike their own balance. We are retail employees, we know what it means to work on a schedule, to have to call in sick because we’ve got to study for tomorrow’s exam, or because we just need a break. We also know what it means to work hard for our jobs, and to have every desire to make things work at our jobs but have no resources to help us do that. HaveMyShift is that resource for us. We offer it to you in hopes that you will use it to help you strike the balance between your responsibilities at work and your life, your happiness. Work Flexibly! Live Happily!
P.S. The silver lining: Starbucks will probably save a good chunk of their $2.5 Billion in wages if they roll out the ‘lean’ Japanese Techniques to all of their stores. How much would they save if every employee at every shift was totally excited to be at the shift? If every employee at every shift wasn’t worried about the study time that they are missing out on, or wasn’t too tired or too sick to be at work, but only there because they need the money in their next paycheck? How efficient would those employees be during their shifts?
