Baristi and the one best way : organizational structures of employment in specialty coffee chains

• Main Author: Raine, Emily Elizabeth
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 2005
• Subjects: Coffeehouses > Employees; Coffeehouses > Management.; Industrial management.
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=83200

This study identifies several points of convergence between specialty cafe chain labourers and the organizations that employ them. Cafe chains are premised upon their consistent reproduction of experience in numerous locations, so organizations must put multiple systems of control into place to ensure their homogeneity across the chain. Foremost among these are Fordism and Taylorism, two systems that emphasize rational and efficient routines made up of highly segmented and de-skilled tasks, so that each step in the productive process is done the "one best way." Because employees' friendly service is part of the experience that cafes attempt to reproduce across the chain, the social behaviours of workers are subjected to training and management supervision. The workers, and particularly those workers engaged in "barista" labour, are foregrounded in the cafes' corporate literature, and organizational relations with employees are often used by the companies in marketing and promotional materials. In particular, barista employees are advertised as models of satisfied workers, which discursively situates the companies that employ them as enlightened employers.