2025 Starbucks Ties Executive Salary to Diversification Targets

The company’s figures show that it has fallen short of those targets in nine of the 14 target levels it currently said it would track. The company has approximately 200,000 U.S. employees and about 8,900 company-owned stores in the U.S.

“They’re not a slam dunk,” Rose Brewer, Starbucks’ chief rating operating officer, said of the new targets in an interview. “They’ll take some work.”

Starbucks implements diversity goals and training at a time of intense debate about race and representation in American corporations. During the summer after George Floyd was murdered in police custody in Minneapolis, unrest revived national conversations over the race, during which some companies promised to diversify their operations.

The Trump administration is discouraged from giving federal contracted companies specific diversity-related targets or racial-sensitivity training. The Street Journal reported last week that the Labor Department was investigating companies with federal contracts that included specific numerical targets in their promises to increase diversification. The White House has said it will consider canceling contracts with companies that have violated an administrative order prohibiting federal grant recipients from providing diversity training.

The executive order has also caused confusion in businesses with federal contracts and has been pushed by some private companies.

Starbucks is the federal contractor for the world’s largest coffee company by sales and stores.

Ms. Brewer said the company is aware of the executive orders that will take effect next month and will implement them regardless of targets and training. All Starbucks employees will benefit from being part of a more diverse workforce, he said.

“It’s not affecting our way forward,” Ms Brewer said of the executive order. “We understand some of the controversy surrounding it, but that’s who we are. We are committed to it. “

Starbucks has navigated the controversy over the race at other times in recent years.

In 2018, protests erupted over the arrest of two black men sitting at a table in Philadelphia locations at Starbucks. Chief executive Kevin Johnson apologized for the arrest, and Chen asked his U.S. counterpart to take antibiotics training. Corporate stores closed for a day. This June Starbucks made T-shirts available to employees with the “Black Lives Matter” slogan, after initially instructing employees not to display the slogan on their persons at work.

Ms. Brewer said the company’s assessment of diversity levels has raised targets for new employees since the arrest at the Philadelphia store. The company found that employees from different backgrounds had to work harder to help them rise from the ranks, he said.

“People of color want to see, and they want to hear,” he said.

Starbucks said it would annually announce progress toward its diversification goals. The Seattle-based company said administrative compensation to employees at senior vice president level and above would be determined in part by a diversification metric. It did not say exactly how the return would be linked to the matrix.

The company said it will also offer an executive mentoring program for color employees starting this year and will include antibacterial material for hiring, development and performance appraisal.

Mrs Brewer, who is black, said she wished she had such a guide early in her career. “I can only imagine in my own personal career if I get that chance,” he said.

Write to Heather Hayden at [email protected]