Mission
Our mission is to: “Fulfill needs, satisfy wants and exceed expectations of our customers so that they will keep on coming back to us.” We want to accomplish our mission via providing high quality services, fresh beverages and food and individual and flexible approach to our customers.
- Fresh cakes and appetizers
Buying from local suppliers will ensure freshness and quality of our goods.
- The best quality of customer services
Flexibility and individual approach to our customers will make them feel unique and make them come back to us
Bring special products according to holidays and seasons.
Make our customers feel wanted and welcomed, let them know that we are happy to have them.
- Behaving according to The Golden Rule ( Treat others as you want to be treated)
This point is applicable not only to customers but also to our employees. Because happy employee will perform at his/her best and will satisfy our customers.
Vision
The Best Coffee in Town vision is to maintain its leading position in Slovak market and continue in tradition. Successfully enter the Saudi Arabian market and give jobs to more and more people. To increase our profit and expand, we want to approach new markets in four years time. The bottom- line effect should bring us enough of resources needed for completing this goal. We also want to be an inspiration for other businesses in CSR and help to create a better environment around us. Another goal is to be the first coffee house which will offer a delivery of our products and possibility of catering for smaller meetings and ocasions
Engaging in the Total Quality Management we want to approach the Zero Defects in customers’ orders processing.
Organizational structure
The structure of the company is derived from its mission and vision. In other words, structure reflects the best organization of human resources across all levels of corporate positions. At the bottom of the company there are bartenders and waiting staff in each coffee shop. They are trained professionals taking care of stock, purchasing and inventory needs. Waiting staff is usually part timers and local students who switch shifts twice a day. The Country Manager supervises all Regional Managers. And Regional managers are directly supervising coffee shops in each region. They cooperate and communicate with the Sales Department, HR Department and Marketing Team. Regional managers also directly report to the CEO. He is in fact responsible for reporting to the Board of Directors and acts in their best interest.
Job description
This section of Handbook describes responsibilities and duties of each manager in the company. Duties, roles and reporting obligations are written in a bullet form for clear organization. The following points outline job description of the most important positions in the company.
CEO at all times communicates values of the company to all subordinates. He acts as a role model for the managers and the employees. CEO’s top priority is to make decisions that are in align with our mission and vision. He acts in the best interest of the company and all shareholders.
Country Manager reports to the CEO. He is also at the same communication level as Sales, Marketing and HR Departments with respect to the CEO. Country manager oversees all eight Regional Managers. Besides managing them, he is responsible for:
- Regional Budgeting
- Setting long- and short-term goals for each region
- Hiring Regional Managers
- Writing reports for the CEO
Regional Managers are in charge of each region. Or in other words, they oversee all five coffee shops in each region with the exception of Bratislava region where they oversee eight. Their direct subordinates are bartenders and waiters from each shop. Regional Manager is mostly in charge of:
- Overseeing shops
- Supervising Waiters and Bartenders
- Budgeting
- Purchasing
- Communication with suppliers
- New acquisitions and partnerships
HR Team is made up of the Country Manager and Regional Managers alongside with support of HR Assistant that is mostly responsible for payroll and administrative support. While Country Manager and regional Managers hire people and decide whether or not a person should work for our company, HR assistant does payroll and communicates with labor and social security authorities.
Marketing Manager with his team of four members creates the marketing plan, sets marketing goal and develops strategies. Since our business is strongly consumer-oriented and we sell to a specific market, his job is to monitor current trends and keep up company’s pace with it. Tasks of the Marketing Team include:
- Market analysis and research
- Sales and customer demands monitoring
- Advertising and PR
Sales department has roughly three employees and mostly takes care of company’s sales. It monitors the daily turnovers and sets the quota. In fact, it cooperates with Marketing department and Country Manager for better results.
Accounting & Finance is small but very important part of the business. Each valuable employee with Accounting and Finance Departments contributes to better understand where the company stands and what our numbers are.
Equal employment opportunities
Workforce diversity
We at coffee shop welcome and encourage diversity. Talents on different genders, age, nationalities, ethnicities, color, race, sexual orientation and religion and belief are always joyfully accepted to be part of the company. Company’s policy is to hire employees and provide them prospering environment.
Attendance policies
We at The Best Coffee in Town are keen on details. The attendance policy is based on details that have to be considered. Fixed work time is required. Once the CEO sets a fixed work time, it is in each manager’s best interest to stick to that time and obey it. Any brakes taken from work time have to be recorded and approved. These breaks can be all except:
- Smoking breaks
- Romance breaks
- Counter-productive breaks
Punctuality is one of the key expectations from CEO. Each manager has to arrive to work at time. Any late arrival is recorded and then discussed with the Head of HR. All other workplace issues are in accordance with Slovak Labor Code.
Individual proces and behavior
Human behavior is individual and people differ from each other. We can find some people with similar behavior but they are never the same. Main goal in our business is to treat our employees fairly and give them opportunity to learn something new and give them chance to improve their knowledge and skills. Next, it is very important to respect each other and behave fairly. Then, manager should be able to recognize behavior of individuals- employees and use the information in a right way. “Cognition is the thought process in humans that describes how the information we continually obtain is transformed, stored and used as knowledge in future conclusion making massive ability and is the main understanding foundation.” (Role of Human Resources in Talent Management, 2011) The following chart shows differences between individual behaviors.
(Alam,2011)
There are two ways of thinking: rational and emotional. Rational thinking is based on some relevant and true information. It includes some scientific, mathematical information which are proved. (Gupta, 2010) The second, emotional behavior is based on personal feeling of individuals. This information is not proved they just come out from the feeling. Emotions came make a big pressure on decision making. Sometimes what you feel is good and the decision is right but there can be also bad feelings that can force individuals to make bad decision even they think it is a good decision. As a matter of fact, employees should more relay on rational thinking than on emotional thinking.
There are several factors that influence the behavior: “abilities, gender, perception, attribution and attitude.” (Gupta, 2010)
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Abilities: abilities of a human being are innate skills and qualities. There are two types of ability. The first one is mental ability and the second one is physical ability. The difference between these two abilities is that mental ability reflects the intelligence and cleverness and the physical ability reflects “strength, motor skills and body coordination” (Gupta, 2010).
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Gender: We distinguish two genders: man and woman. It is known that women used to be discriminated and they could not get high position in companies. In our business both genders are equal. We do not make any differences between them and we consider both genders as a strong and effective asset to our company.
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Race: Race can be compared with the previous point gender. It could be similar problem. In our company do not differentiate the origin of our employees. The opposite is true. We are very happy to take someone with different race to our company. It can bring many advantages. For example we can learn many new information, skills, behavior, culture
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Perception: perception is method of considering, understanding, accepting. “In business, perceptions describe the way stakeholders perceive an enterprise or a brand, based on its actions and the behavior of its people” (Perception Management, 2008). It is very important ability which should have both manager and also individuals. In our company we are trying to give some tasks to our employees to discover if they have good perception or not. If they do not have the right perception we give them chance to improve it.
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Attribution: “is the process of observing behavior and then determining its cause based on individual´s personality or situation” (Gupta, 2010). It is very important to know employees attribution because from that we can recognize his or her personality and attitude to the work. It is necessary to know if the given position is right for him or her. By observing we can find out all these information and evaluate his or her work.
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Attitude: In our company attitude is placed on the first most important points. We have to be sure that the attitude of manager and also employees is right and they are doing their best. Attitude to the work is the keystone to the success.
Motivation at work
Manager´s responsibility is to make employees to do the work. To have a result of your job being well done it is necessary to motivate your employees. It is very important to know all employees, their wants, their goals etc. according to this information about employees we can find out what motivate them. Of course that one of the biggest motivation is money but it is not possible to give always money as a reward or as a point of motivation. In our company, manager motivates his employees in a several ways. He gives some opportunities such as money reward, longer holiday, longer breaks, some voucher for dinner for whole family, products for free etc. Thanks to these rewards employees of our coffee house are motivated more than enough and as a consequence they should do their job as good as they can.
(Business performance, 2010)
Ethics
Ethics are essential in every workplace. Ethics in other words means to have ability to recognize the right and wrong sides of opinions, decision and attitude. Those abilities should belong to manager who is the most responsible person in the company. The ethical management model is very important. It describes modern ethical management and it consists of four main points PPP- purpose, people, planet, probity (Capman, 2010).
Probity in other word means honesty or truthfulness what is one of the steps to success. The second planet means environment in which we are performing our business. The third, purpose means profit what is very important because the goal of the company is to make big profit. The last one people describes the employees of the company which are the most important in the company because from them depend if the business will be successful or not (Chapman, 2010).
Workplace
Our company was built to create a comfortable workplace for our employees. It is necessary to create convenient workplace for our employees. It is important that our employees should feel good and comfortable. The environment reflects the effectiveness of the workers. When they do not feel comfortable they do not perform a good job. And our goal is opposite, to perform and satisfy all our customers and spread the best references about our company.
Communication
Communication is one of the most important duties of manager. It is necessary to communicate with all employees to make a good relationship between each other. At the same time employees and the manager should respect each other. It is important to create the border between manager and his worker to know not to cross this border but at the same time keep good relationship. Also when some problem occur it is necessary to talk about it to ask for help, opinion just communicate even if it is good or not.
Workplace violence
In order to maintain warm and friendly working environment, managers` biggest challenge is the ability to moderate or even eliminate possible violence that can occur in the workplace. Since there is a huge diversity of personalities working at the same time, the probability of hostile behavior among workers and customers can have a greater potential. Because of this, managers’ task is the constant supervision of everybody. All managers` duty is not only to supervise the workforce but they are required to write notes down in case something bad happens. Not only managers but everybody is encouraged to report and write down anything related to violence that occurs at the workplace. Consequently, managers are obliged to take into consideration notes written by their subordinates too. Besides supervising other workers within the company, managers are required to make a feed back on other managers’ hostile behavior too if applicable. Managers are encouraged to supervise each other among themselves as well because they can misuse their competences as well as their subordinates. If everybody realizes that every hostile act can be reported, there is a great possibility to eliminate or mitigate the violence within the company.
For more effective mitigating and further reporting of violence among the workforce, managers have to understand different kinds of violence.
Types of violence:
This type of violence takes place when there is some kind of physical contact between the abuser and victim. This may include for instance:
- Pushing
- Pinching
- Slapping
- Etc… (Types of Violence and Abuse, 2010)
As stated in the article “Sexual Harassment” published by Palo Alto Medical Foundation, “Sexual Harassment is unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature that makes you feel uncomfortable, fearful or powerless…” Here are few examples:
- Sexual comments
- Sexual suggestions
- Sexual touching
- Etc… (Sexual Harassment, 2011)
Emotional violence happens when the worker`s emotions are constantly hurt.
- Name calling
- Criticism
- Humiliating
- Intimidation
- Etc… (Types of Violence and Abuse, 2010)
Verbal abuse takes place when the victim is abused verbally. The case of verbal abuse is being enacted when a coworker is using an offensive language in order to harm another person. It is similar to emotional violence. (Types of Violence and Abuse, 2010)
Code of ethics
Besides the company`s mission to attract customers and keep them coming by satisfying their desires; there is an extreme importance of positive relationship among customers and employers. In order to meet this particular requirement, managers are compulsory to make sure that employers treat their customers as friendly as possible. Because of this the company The Best Coffee in Town must follow the most crucial rule which says that “customer is always right”.
- Managers are obliged to act responsibly and honestly in every situation when dealing with subordinates.
- Managers have to make sure that customers are treated fairly and with respect all the time.
- Every manager must treat each other objectively with caring and take into consideration different cultures of people.
- Managers are obliged to find appropriate way in order to motivate particular subordinate in a best possible way so the mission of the company is met more accurately.
- There is zero tolerance for managers in case there is evidence that their subordinates were treated not according to company`s code of conduct.
- Every manager is required to manage gathered information about employers reliably and honestly.
Discipline and termination of employment
Termination of employment due to failure of worker`s discipline can be used only as the very last step when dealing with a contra productive employer. First of all, if there is a worker who violated the company`s expectations, the manager`s first step must be to figure out what causes such employer`s actions. The communication with a subordinate is a crucial tool to find out whether the worker had just a bad day, or it was a mistake which is not likely to repeat in the future. In case that employer`s mistake is not a subject of a serious violation of code of ethics or the law, there is no need to consider any serious consequences. The only thing managers should do is to let know worker`s to avoid such actions in the future. Secondly, managers have to realize that every human being can sometimes make a mistake so there should be certain tolerance from managers. However if there is a constant violation of code of ethics and the employer violated the code of conduct more than three times, managers have to take termination of employment of such a worker into serious consideration. As long as the worker does not commit the crime, there is a tolerance three times and that is enough. If an employer breaks the law there can not be any tolerance because it would not be only against the values of the company but against the values of the society as well. Moreover, the company The Best Coffee in Town can not take a risk to threaten its very good reputation among its customers.
Learning at workplace
Every employer during his test period has a right to gather necessary knowledge to improve his or her skills. Beside normal working hours the new employers will have to attend a special course. This course will take place two times during the week and will be in progress during regular working period hours. The goal of the course will be focused mainly on professional behavior of workers to customers and etiquette. After the testing period employers will have the opportunity to improve their skills as well. Every manager`s task will be to make regular evaluations related to the employers` performance during the whole month. After this period there will be manager’s obligation to discuss these evaluations with his subordinates and tell them what to improve or what not to do. Consequently, managers` feed back on workers` performance is a very effective tool in order to enhance their skills. Secondly, managers have to be very careful when they are discussing these evaluations. If the evaluation is not very positive, there is a need for effective and most importantly positive motivation. In such cases when manager has to discuss negative results with his subordinate, there is a need to try to start with things that were at least a little positive. It is very important that the employer will not become demotivated or frustrated as a consequence of bad evaluation. The goal of these evaluations is to see what can be improved and communicate these results in a best possible way to particular subordinates.
Personality types
In our company, we appreciate every type of personality. Everyone is different and we give an opportunity to show his or her skills in our working environment. Our principle is to understand every employee and perceive him or her as an individual but at the same time as a member of our family. To achieve this principle, we worship the rule stated by Isabel Briggs Myers “ Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder and your life closer to your heart desire.” (Myers, nd.) According to this motto, we need to understand the personalities in our company to achieve our goals. Therefore, we test every employee to rank him or her according to the following groups. Then we are able to see the potential in our employees and provide them adequate training and position.
Personalities are divided into following groups:
- Extraversion/ Introversion
Dividing is based on the sources of energy, the person gets. “Extraverted type is energized by interaction with other people. The introverted type is energized by time alone.” (Nelson, Quick, 2006) Extraverted type has a big social network. However, introverted type has closer relationships. This preference does not involve social skills. Extraverted types create almost 70 per cent of population. (Kroeger, Thuesen, 1988) It is the most imported distinction between individuals according to Jung.
This is a representation of the preference gathering information. Sensing type prefers to gather information by 5 senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The intuitive type gathers information thanks to “sixth sense” which is an intuition. (Hirsch, Kummerow, 1989) Difference between sensing type and intuitive type is easily visible at work. Sensing type likes to have specific routine instructions and tangible results. Intuitive type likes to learn new things and solve new problem. (Nelson, Quick, 2006)
This preference defines the way how people prefer to make decisions. Thinking type prefers decision based on logic. Feeling type’s decision making is more personal. Therefore, thinking types are more impersonal in contrast of feeling types. Thinking type is more rational, logical and direct. Feeling type is more emotional. (Nelson, Quick, 2006)
Judging type leads planned life and likes decision making. Perceiving type is more flexible and like having options.
Combined forms of these groups create sixteen types of personalities. We use following chart to distinguish the employees.
Values
We want our employees to distinguish between right and wrong. To do so, we have to know the core of it which is what the value is and what purpose it has. To explain it to our employees we use definition by Rokeach: “Values are enduring beliefs that a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence,” (Rockeach, 1973). They help our employees to evaluate own behavior and behavior of others. To build core values in our employees, we motivate them and support them. However, if someone fails in distinguishing between right and wrong, it is necessary to correct him or her or in specific case punish. Four work values relevant to our employees are achievement, honesty, fairness and concern for others. (Rovlin, Meglino, 1987)
Goal setting
Goal setting is guiding and directing behavior towards desired results. Setting goals leads employees towards our mission and is a source of motivation the employees. “Priorities, purpose, and goals are important sources of motivation for people at work, often leading to collective achievement, even in difficult times,” (Nelson, Quick, 2006) The acronym SMART helps us to define what goals should be like. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. Our company wants to be successful and have permanently motivated employees. Therefore, setting goals is crucial for us and the way of doing it precisely is according to following SMART chart.
The success of goal setting is measured in comparing previous goals and the new one. What is more, the brainstorming of management and employees helps us to set the goals adequately. Since we appreciate the opinions of every employee, we ask everyone.
Team skills and team work
Our company encourages our employees in development of skills and offers them many opportunities to do so. Star-up trainings are provided to every new employee to make him or her more comfortable at work from beginning and what is more important, more professional. However, the skills of the members of our The Best Coffee in Town family are not the only thing we praise. We want our employees to look forward to being at work. And the key thing they need to have is a friend in every colleague. To support this idea we organize team buildings monthly where the staff plays team games such as football, volleyball or baseball and can develop their relations among the team. Another part of the team building is verbal games based on communication. Since we realize that the communication is the important part of having the successful team.
Stress management
We know that even in our coffee shop where the customers look for mellow and relaxation can be time during the day when the employees have to handle a lots of stress due to the busyness. First of all, we believe in prevention of this situation. Therefore, as stated above we lead our employees to be a great skillful team to avoid it by good communication skills and good team performance. However, if such a situation occurs, the employees need to reduce it as much as possible. In such a case, every employee can take a five minute break after assurance that other colleagues agree with it. This break is for relaxation in the break room where the employee can use a punching bag or drink a coffee or tea according to the current need. The employee has to return on work place after 5 minutes. This procedure should improve performance during busy days and bring smile back on the employee’s face again. The break has to be used be relieved from the pressure.
Conflict management
We hope that conflicts in our working environment will be rare. However, they may occur time to time. The best solution for this situation is the communication which is stresses everywhere. Therefore, we arrange meetings every second Wednesday in each month where we discuss current issues with the employees. The issue may be within the team or the coffee shop itself. It has to be solved on the meetings, no postponement is accepted. Manager of the concerned shop has to take an action and support the successful solution.
References
Alam, S. (May, 2011). Individual Behavior in Organization. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://roletalentmanagement.blogspot.com/2011/05/individual-behavior-in-organization.html
Business Performance, (2010). Diagnosing Poor Work Performance. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.businessperform.com/workplace-training/poor_employee_performance.html
Gupta, A. (2010). Individual Behavior in Organization. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.practical-management.com/Organization-Development/Individual-Behavior-in-Organization.html
Chapman, A. (2010). Ethical leadership, decision making, and organizations. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.businessballs.com/ethical_management_leadership.htm
Hirsch, S. , Kummerow, J.. (1989). Life Types. New York: Warner Books
Kroeger, O., Thuesen, J. M.. (1988). Type Talk. New York : Delacorte Press
Myers, I. B.. (n.d.). Retrieved on November 27, 2011 from http://www.myersbriggs.org/
Nelson, D. E., Quick, J. C. (2006). 5th edition. Pg. 91
Nelson, D. E., Quick, J. C. (2006). 5th edition. Pg. 92
Perception Management, (2008). What is perception management? Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.perceptionmanagement.com.my/faq.htm
Rockeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: Free Press
Rovlin , E. C., Meglino, B. M.. (1987). Effects of Vallues on Perception and Decision Making: A Study of Alternative work values measures. Journal of Applied Psychology.
Sexual Harassment. (2011). Published by Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.pamf.org/teen/sex/rape_assault/sexualharass.html#Types of Sexual Harassment
Types of Violence and Abuse. (2010, November 22). Retrieved from http://www.gov.nl.ca/VPI/types/index.html#physicalviolence