Starbucks Tells Workers to Come to Office or Get Fired

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 29, 7:10AM EDT

Starbucks Tells Workers to Come to Office or Get Fired — © BobGrif / Getty Images

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Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX | SBUX Price Prediction) has threatened to fire corporate workers who do not return to the office.
Meanwhile, its CEO commutes to work by private jet.
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Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), the deeply troubled coffee store company, told its corporate staff to come to the headquarters three days a week or get fired. Notably, its CEO Brian Niccol, who is off to a rocky start, lives in Newport Beach, California, and commutes 1,000 miles to the headquarters by private jet.

According to Bloomberg, a new “standardized process” ensures headquarters workers follow the rules. If they don’t, the penalty is “up to, including separation.”

Starbucks has enough employee problems that antagonizing people at the headquarters seems unnecessary. Its store workers are upset because many believe they are overworked as some customers order remotely and pick up orders at stores while walk-in customers ask for orders simultaneously. Earlier labor battles with former CEO Howard Schultz have already hit morale. As local workers unionize, Starbucks will have a labor cost problem.

It does not help morale that Starbucks workers get stock grants under a program called “Bean Stock.” Regardless of the time the grants are made, these workers get to watch the stock sink. Starbucks shares are up only 2% year to date, while the S&P 500 is 23% higher.

Starbucks has a long list of troubles. However, looking through just one lens, the return to work policy has to be galling. Niccol gets to take a plane to work, and headquarters workers don’t.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.