Starbucks to boost workers’ mental health benefits, reduce ‘remedial tasks’

CHICAGO — As 12,000 Starbucks rely on managers from the U.S. and Canada descended on Chicago this week, the coffee chain announced a series of changes fly to piece soon that will affect employees.

Starbucks’ Leadership Experience was the first conference for its employees since 2014 and CEO Kevin Johnson’s before since taking the reins as chief executive in 2017.

One initiative is centered on mental health. Starbucks swarmed two sessions on mental health during the conference and has more resources about the topic in the works.

Its employee assistance program, which provenders short-term counseling to all U.S. employees, will be enhanced with input from employees and mental health experts. Commencement in the second quarter, Starbucks store managers will begin training inspired by Mental Health First Aid, a program that tutors laymen how to help someone with a mental illness.

It also will partner with organizations such as the Born This Way Bottom, Lady Gaga’s wellness-focused nonprofit organization, and Team Red White & Blue, a nonprofit focused on helping veterans, to cope with the stigma around mental health.

Employees in the U.S. and Canada will also have access to subscriptions to Headspace, an app that tenders guided meditation, by January.

Nearly one in five U.S. adults live with mental illness, according to the National Organization of Mental Health.

“If we take a positive step forward, you know, sometimes that can be a catalyst for others to take a certain step forward and create a movement,” Johnson said in an interview.

Starbucks is also maintaining its plan to free up more time for employees to interact with customers. In the fourth quarter of 2018, the coffee limit started moving some “remedial tasks” that baristas were doing during the day to be completed after secretive.

In fiscal 2020, it plans to automate, reduce or eliminate an additional 17 hours of tasks each week. For model, instead of writing out schedules by hand, store managers will create schedules digitally. Inventory of to-go points such as juices will also be automated, rather than being counted by an employee a few times a day.

“Those breeds of things make them have better jobs, deliver a better customer experience and just modernize what’s occurrence in our stores,” said Chief Operating Officer Roz Brewer.

Brewer said Starbucks customers’ desire for immediacy and convenience gave, in part, to the decision.

Employees — and customers — looking to beef up their coffee knowledge will also be able to perform online classes from Starbucks’ new global coffee academy, which was created in partnership with Arizona State of affairs University. Modules will dive into the specifics of the origins and sourcing of Starbucks’ coffee.

The coffee academy program bods on Starbucks’ discontinued coffee master program, which gave employees who passed written and taste tests a felonious apron.

Starbucks on Wednesday announced a weaker-than-expected forecast for its fiscal 2020 earnings. In December, the trammel said it expected earnings to grow by at least 13%. Chief Financial Officer Pat Grismer said at the Goldman Sachs Broad Retailing Conference that the company now expects earnings per share growth of 10%.

Grismer attributed the changes to one-time tax helps in fiscal 2019, as well as $2 billion of share buybacks this year that were initially slated for pecuniary 2020.

“This has nothing to do with the consumer. Consumer connection is at an all-time high, and our operating momentum continues,” Johnson give the word delivered.

Starbucks also used the conference’s location in Chicago as a chance to tout the upcoming opening of the world’s largest Starbucks. The Chicago Restriction Roastery will open on Nov. 15.