This Is How Starbucks Plans To Increase Diversity In Its Senior Management By 2025

Starbucks (Nasdaq:SBUX) is stepping up its efforts to improve diversity among its ranks, aiming to have Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) employees make up at least 30% of its corporate and 40% of retail workforce by 2025.

The Seattle-based company joins a growing list of corporations that have pledged to take steps to improve workforce diversity in recent months.

The company released Wednesday its workforce diversity data and set its trajectory to achieve the above goals in the next five years. Starbucks will station outreach workers in its cafes and tie executive compensation to how well its diversity goals are being pushed forward. How this plan will affect the pay of the executives was not made clear.

It will launch a mentorship program next year to connect BIPOC employees to management in a better way and add anti-bias content into hiring and appraisal toolkits.

At present, BIPOC employees constitute 18.5% of Starbucks’ workforce at the senior vice president level and above. About 46% of its employees identify as a minority.

"Starbucks U.S. partner base is 69% female and 47% Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Breaking down our BIPOC representation further, our partners are 8% Black, 27% Hispanic or Latinx, 6% Asian, 5% multiracial, 0.6% American Indian or Alaskan Native, and 0.6% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander," the company said in a blog post.

Following the Black Lives Matter movement in the past six months, many corporates have ramped up efforts at inclusivity. But Starbucks had started down that path earlier. In 2018, when two Black men waiting for a friend at a Philadelphia Starbucks were arrested, the company took a lot of heat, following which CEO Kevin Johnson issued a public apology and closed down all Starbucks cafes for two days for anti-bias training.

Microsoft announced in June an inclusion and diversity investment of $150 million to double the number of Black managers and senior managers by 2025. Wells Fargo has set similar goals for its business and will evaluate senior leaders based on their efforts to raise diversity in their areas of responsibility. Adidas has also announced plans to have at least 30% Black or Latinx people in its workforce.

Starbucks shares closed at $89.31, down 0.94%, on Nasdaq Wednesday.