New Starbucks CEO Plans to Work Behind the Counter

New Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan plans to work a half shift in a Starbucks cafe once a month to maintain a closer connection to what is happening on the store floor.

Mr. Narasimhan, who stepped into the CEO role earlier this month, already spent the six-month ramp-up to his new job earning his barista certificate and visiting store locations, farms and manufacturing centers to immerse himself in the company’s operations, according to the Associated Press.

His plans to work in stores are a first for a CEO of the coffee chain and part of his strategy to promote connection and engagement between leadership and workers. He wrote in a letter to employees that his concern extends to “the artists and the theater in the front of [Starbucks] stores and the factory in the back.” Mr. Narasimhan characterized the “health” of the company as needing “to be stronger” despite the brand’s strong performance.

Executives walking or working on the store floor to get an in-person sense of customer and employee concerns is endorsed by industry experts and retailers who engage in the practice.

The most prominent recent example of a business having its upper-level employees do frontline work to stay connected with the brand experience is DoorDash. The company requires employees to make deliveries once a month as part of its WeDash program. The program was suspended for part of the novel coronavirus pandemic, but returned in late 2021.

Disconnects between leadership and employees may have played a role in some of the difficulties Starbucks faced under Kevin Johnson’s tenure as CEO. In the years leading up to Mr. Narasimhan becoming CEO, Starbucks has occasionally made headlines for facing the most significant union organizing efforts in the company’s history amid a wave of renewed interest in labor activism throughout the U.S.

Howard Schultz, Starbucks founder and CEO, returned to the helm as interim CEO after Mr. Johnson stepped down, and developed an image as having a hard stance against unionization.

A New York Times article quoting Mr. Schultz’s personal friends characterized his anti-union stance as “personal,” insofar as he sees unionization as conflicting with his vision of Starbucks as a model employer.

• New Starbucks CEO plans to work in stores monthly - Associated Press

• Should DoorDash make all workers do deliveries? - RetailWire

• How Starbucks Changed Under Departing CEO Kevin Johnson - The Wall Street Journal

• Did Howard Schultz make a wise course correction on his first day back at Starbucks? - RetailWire

• Why Is Howard Schultz Taking This So Personally? His opposition to a union isn’t primarily about the bottom line - The New York Times