this is not company policy.

You have 30 minutes after your shift to use your partner beverage discount. Totally made up.

Um what?

I regularly ran home from work to decompress and would grab my laptop and go back and do homework. My manager didn't care at all (I was an opener)

Maybe after closing time but during open business hours off the clock your a customer.

I’d escalate it back up to that dm to see if that’s what they said. Chances are that your manager got embarrassed and made up their own rules. As someone else pointed out you have up to 30 minutes after your shift ends to get a drink.

this is a violation of the third place policy

We were told this back in like, February when Covid was out of control (and a lot of partners weren’t yet vaccinated or boosted) that we had to leave immediately after our shift and not interact with anyone. Basically we were encouraged to not be around each other, ever. It did not work because we are all very friendly with one another lol

Not company policy, take it up with HR

I smell union busting tactics (ง'̀-'́)ง

Isn’t that similar to the same reason that one dude sued cause he wanted to just use the restroom and got arrested

Talk to your DM or PCC cause your SM is wrong ✨

I have a scheduled four hour meeting next week, I wonder if it has to do with any of the same things your store is experiencing.

My gut tells me Starbucks wants to try any ploy to discourage any union

I’ve had unreasonable DMs before and they DONT LAST. Go above them! Find out who your regional manager is and anonymously email or call them. Also, the only benefit i can give this DM and SM is if they’d come in to visit and partners weren’t creating the third place environment because they were joking around with “friends” who happens to be their partners. But you can’t tell a partner when they can or can’t be in a public business. Ridiculous!

That doesn’t seem right, I used to always go to work to do homework or literally just to get out of the house.

This is nonsense. Tell your DM that your SM claimed it's company policy. Your DM may have been concerned that the on-the-clock partners were talking to the off-the-clock partners while not doing any work. But your SM doesn't get to make up such a drastic rule as a result and falsely claim that it's company policy. If your DM doesn't do anything about it, contact PRSC.

That's wrong. Call the PRSC and ask.

Yeah your manager is a bullshit liar. That’s not at all company policy. I’d call HR on her.

your sm is a liar lmaooo

This is weird. Unless you have some Covid scheduling related thing, wtf.

that’s super SUPER suuuuuuper not okay. that person would be fired at my location, what a power trip.

This isn’t a policy during normal work hours

Respectfully… your manager is an idiot.

This sounds like the policy of a DM(s?) in an area that is either unionizing or is likely to be, as this policy would make it more difficult for cross-shift communication/strategization

Lol what?! Other partners and I don’t stick around for too long usually, but there’s definitely a few that are in school who study for hours at the store off the clock and we don’t mind. That’s for sure not policy, it may have been during the peak of covid but definitely not now.

I have shift leads coming in often to do homework and stuff on their computer on days off and even after work/ before sometimes! Your dm complained?

Its stops them from unionizing

We’re supposed to be a third place but not for employees? Totally bogus and made up. If you want to sit in the lobby after your shift up until close, you’re free to do so.

So, you can look up the policy on partner hub. I don’t recall exactly what it’s called, but there is a policy that says you cannot be in the back room or in employee only areas while off the clock, but the lobby or any other customer accessible areas are absolutely not included in that.

! I’ve never heard of that? Especially because the food markout rule is 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after! That’s not real. I’d try to get that in writing.

No. What is she psycho? Third place is company policy and off the clock she can say don’t hang in the employee area but to say you can’t come in as a customer? I’d report her to district because she is flat out lying.

go in as often as you can and do your homework or something and hopefully the manager will try to enforce this policy. let the customers see them kicking an employee out. make a scene. then quit. best option.

Ask your SM and DM to see that policy yourself. Ask them to show it to you in the partner handbook. If they can’t or refuse to show it to you, escalate it to your regional manager or PRCC. They’re making up bullshit policies and deserve to be called out on it.

one of my coworkers stays almost the entirety of my shift(she usually gets off when i clock on) in the cafe on her laptop doing homework. policy allows her to

what..

I dunno.. If your store is still following block scheduling due to COVID, I could see how you would have to leave.

Rubbish. I sit out the front in the cafe area waiting for my ride home all the time.

Report to ethics and compliance.

There’s two things this could be somewhat related to:

1.) An updated district wide policy because the DM is upset about off the clock employees distracting on the clock employees. You are certainly allowed to ask employees who are off the clock to not distract the people working and you can even kick them out if they refuse to comply. This is obviously not that but a preemptive measure though.

2.) It is Starbucks policy that we can ask people to leave if they’ve been in the cafe for too long. I don’t know that anybody does this but there were a bunch of training videos on it a while ago. Basically the cafes are no longer intended to house people all day. The furniture in the cafes has even become less comfortable to encourage them to leave. Starbucks also limits seating in many stores just to make sure not many people can feel comfortable sitting inside all day without spending the money. Technically, if a customer has been there for a while and new ones come in who want to sit down you can ask the one who has been there a while to leave. On this basis any employee wouldn’t be allowed to sit there for long periods of time.

That second rule might not be in effect anymore? I haven’t seen it crop up in recent training. I’m sure if anyone tried it it didn’t go very well and it seems like it would open Starbucks up to another bigotry related lawsuit. I’m also not saying your SM referenced actual company policy. These are just the only two existing rules I imagine they could basing the premise of this new rule they made up off of.

But it’s definitely not written down as actual company policy, especially if we can get a markout 30 minutes before and after. Plus some employees have to wait a while for rides so if that’s ever a case it would be a safety violation for the company to provide all their stores with the basis to deny them the right to wait indoors to get picked up.

wtf?

I’ve never heard of this

You should call the PRSC, they’ll be happy to clear that up for your manager lmao

a bunch of employees at my store use the store as a regular hangout and it’s nice because when you’re on your break, you can sit and talk to them

It could be a policy of the licensee? What kinda store is it? Is it a corporate standalone or an attachment?

Maybe she meant no hanging out in the back or on the floor, off to the side?

what?? people at my store literally come in on their off days, come behind the bar and make themselves drinks and food and then leave

i think they mean you can’t *work* off the clock not be in the store off the clock. you can certainly be in the store off the clock

Sounds like a dm policy. Well if the dm doesn’t like it, just listen to it even if it sounds crazy. Dm has the ability to fire people on the spot without going through the verbal written warning process. My friend works with a dm like that.