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Starbucks links pay to diversity targets

Starbucks has said it will link executive pay to diversity targets as it announced a new set of goals to advance racial equality.

The global coffee brand has set a target of having black, indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) represent at least 30% of partners at all corporate levels and at least 40% at all retail and manufacturing roles by 2025.

At a corporate level representation of different ethnic groups is currently 65.2% white, 19.2% Asian, 7.4% Hispanic/Latinx and 2.6% black.

The company said it was “on a journey to advance racial and social equity for our partners (employees), our community and our society”.

It aims to cultivate “a culture of inclusion, with a focus on partner retention and development”.

Starbucks announced a series of actions that will help achieve its aim. These include the launch of a mentorship programme connecting BIPOC partners to senior leaders. Investment in strategic partnerships with professional organisations who focus on the development of BIPOC talent. And the embedding of anti-bias content into all hiring, development, and performance assessment toolkits.

Starbucks also stated its intention to “incorporate measurements focused on building inclusive and diverse teams into our executive compensation programmes beginning in FY21”.

Foodservice operators are being urged to make diversity and inclusion a strategic business priority in order to improve the representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups at a senior level.

BAME in Hospitality founder Lorraine Copes said in an interview with Footprint that she was in favour of companies publishing data on ethnic pay gaps in the same way they are now required to do for gender pay. “There is no accountability if there is no visibility of the statistics. That would really shine a light on the true disparity [in pay] because at the moment there is a lot of guesswork,” Copes said.