Business - ASSIGNMENT - Operations Policy

Operations Policies - Prepare for your

assignment

Let's prepare for your assignment this module.

Internal Corporate Policies ( written by the business for

employees, vendors, suppliers)

Written policies provide company guidelines and accepted standards for behaviors and understandings. Internal policies are written for use within a company by employees, vendors, and company partners. They may be stored in a variety of formats for easy access:

● in an a traditional paper manual stored at a company or provided to the vendor or partner

● in digital files for online access ● or posted on a company website.

External Consumer Policies (written by the business for

consumers or business customers)

Companies who sell directly to consumers write polices for their employees and consumers that are easy to understand. The goal is to provide simple, information that both the employees who serve the customers and the customers/consumers will both understand.

Example of a consumer policy - Printed on a T J Maxx purchase receipt:

Refunds within 30 days with receipt. Store credit only with gift receipt.

*** Let's prepare for this module's assignment. You will search company websites to identify and share one (1) electronically shared, operations policy. ***

Find policies on company websites.

How do you find a corporate website? Many companies have two different websites:

● one for consumer information ● one for their business information ● Some companies have just a consumer site, where they also list their

business information at the bottom of the homepage.

Example - Starbucks

It's easy to find a business website. Use your internet search bar provided in Google, Firefox or another browser. I used Google to search for Starbuck's.

● I learned that Starbuck's has one website developed for consumers to learn about their products.

● Starbuck's corporate information was at the bottom of that same homepage

Below is a image from the bottom of Starbuck's home page showing a variety of company topics like: About Us, Careers, Social Impact, For Business Partners, Ways to Order. Clicking through the content will help you learn more about Starbucks.

Be careful. Choose only a policy.

What's the difference between general information and

policies?

● SOME of the content on a website may simply be basic information and not a policy at all. The company may just be sharing facts, or maybe even some information for good marketing.

● OTHER CONTENT is likely policies

How will you know if it's a policy or just information?

Read it!!

● A policy will include specific standards the company follows.

● A policy typically provides actions or behaviors that must be followed.

● It if doesn't include those, then it's probably not a policy. It may merely be information the company is sharing with others.

Attribution

● image - screenshot of the bottom of Starbuck's website by Nancy Fredericks

● policies and basic information from Starbucks are copy and paste content directly from their website by Nancy Fredericks

Policies and Not Policies

Remember ● A policy will include specific standards the company follows. ● A policy typically provides actions or behaviors that must

be followed. ● It if doesn't include those, then it's probably not a policy. It may

merely be information the company is sharing with others.

Examples - Starbuck's Policies found on their website

Parental Leave Policy Eligible partners welcoming a new child may receive time off and pay replacement through parental leave. Starbucks also provides adoption-expense reimbursement of up to $10,000 per child for eligible partners.

Equal Opportunity Employer All partners and applicants will be treated fairly, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, marital status, military or veteran status, gender identity and expression, genetic information, or any other factor protected by law.

2.2 Supplier Status and Conduct - Anti-Bribery Starbucks is committed to the highest ethical standards in all business interactions. To support these high standards, Starbucks Suppliers must not exchange bribes or kickbacks of any kind to influence business decisions or secure any improper advantage. Suppliers shall comply with all applicable anti-bribery laws and regulations, including the Foreign Corruption Practices Act (FCPA) and the U.K. Bribery Act. Specifically, Suppliers must not directly or indirectly give or accept anything of value, or make payments, promises, or offers that would improperly

impact, or could be perceived to improperly impact business transactions with government officials or individuals in the private sector.

Examples - These Are Not Policies. This is just basic information the company is sharing and not

the kind of information you are looking for to submit

for this assignment.

How do I check my Starbucks Card balance? (This

is not an operations policy.) There are a few ways you can do this:

• Visit our card page

(Links to an external site.)

.

• Sign in

(Links to an external site.)

to your Starbucks account, go to My Cards and select the Card you wish to view the balance on.

• From the Starbucks Mobile app for iPhone® or Android®: Select the "Cards" tab to view balances on all of the Cards associated with your Starbucks Rewards account. Click on the circle arrow to refresh the balance.

Internships (This is not an operations policy.)

Our Starbucks Support Center internships offer students opportunities to influence business performance and build expertise while living an incredible summer in Seattle, Washington. Undergraduate and graduate openings may include Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, Technology and more.

Undergraduate applications are posted in fall for internships during the following summer. Graduate applications are open in winter for same-year summer internships.

Cage-free Eggs & Antibiotics (This is not an

operations policy.)

Since Starbucks first began buying cage-free eggs in 2008, we have made significant progress, increasing our purchases year over year. While there have been great strides in availability of the supply in the U.S., there remains work to be done across the industry to increase supply to address market availability globally. We are committed to working with our suppliers toward our goal to exclusively use 100 percent cage-free eggs and egg products in company-operated stores globally by 2020. In addition, Starbucks encourages its licensees to join this commitment and will work with them to extend it to Starbucks licensed stores. As of October 2018, 100 percent of shell eggs and 99.99 percent of liquid eggs in North America company-operated stores are cage-free. We continue our efforts on ingredients in North America.

Operations Policies - Other Examples

Company policies and procedures vary based on the many things a company may want employees and the public to know. Policy examples might be topics like: safety, attendance, purchasing items on behalf of the company, not taking gifts from vendors, personal internet usage, behaviors like discrimination, sexual harassment, and uniform requirements.

Below are some examples of policies from different companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations found using the internet.

● San Diego Zoo - California Fair Pay Act ● (Links to an external site.) ● ● U.S. Department of State - Sexual Harassment Policy ● (Links to an external site.) ● ● Macy's - Return Policy and exceptions ● (Links to an external site.) ●

What to do when it's a big, big, big policy with

several different topics in it?

Some businesses create one very large policy page, but include many different topics under that one page. They are basically separate little policies that the company happen to tuck together on one page. If you come across a policy like this, for this assignment, just choose one (1) of the topics from a page to analyze.

Example: ● San Diego Zoo - Privacy Policy ● (Links to an external site.) ● ---- This policy has several separate policies within it. For this assignment

you would choose just one section of this giant policy to analyze. Examples: Information Collection and Sharing; or Children and Privacy; or Secure Shopping; or others on the same page

Example: California Supply Chain Transparency

Statement

Manufacturers in California are required by state law to demonstrate transparency in their supply chains. The requirement to provide this public information is meant to discourage company's and their competitors from purchasing products from suppliers who do not legally or ethically own or operate their business, or those who treat their employees inhumanely.

As you can imagine, consumers and business buyers will likely shun companies and avoid purchasing products and services from companies who are not treating others humanely or are operating in ways that damage the quality of life or the earth. Manufacturers don't want their reputations to be damage for things their vendors in their supply chain do illegally or unethically. That's why carefully choosing and monitoring their supply chains is so important.

The link below is an example of a California Supply Chain Disclosure from GoPro, the action video camera company based in San Mateo, California. GoPro has an office in San Diego County in the City of Carlsbad.

https://gopro.com/casupplychaindisclosure

(Links to an external site.)