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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(107,063 posts)
Wed Jun 10, 2020, 09:05 PM Jun 2020

Starbucks to close up to 400 stores, speed up expansion of pickup locations

Starbucks is planning to close up to 400 company-owned locations in the U.S over the next 18 months while accelerating a plan to build smaller, pickup-only locations in major cities.

The Seattle-based coffee giant was forced to close its stores to customers at the height of the coronavirus pandemic but continued to operate drive thru and pickup in many locations. The company said 95% of its 8,000 U.S. company-run stores are now open with varying levels of service, just slightly lower than operations globally.

"As we navigate through the COVID-19 crisis, we are accelerating our store transformation plans to address the realities of the current situation, while still providing a safe, familiar and convenient experience for our customers,” Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in a release.

The company had opened two pickup-only locations in New York and Toronto over the last seven months. It had planned to open more over a three- to five-year time period, but has pushed that timetable to the next 18 months. Starbucks said 80% of U.S. Starbucks transactions even before the pandemic were to-go orders.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/starbucks-to-close-up-to-400-stores-speed-up-expansion-of-pickup-locations/ar-BB15jcn7?ocid=hplocalnews

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Ms. Toad

(33,915 posts)
1. Starbucks has the best communication of bad news skills of any company I've encountered.
Wed Jun 10, 2020, 09:21 PM
Jun 2020

My daughter started working there the week before things started closing because of COVID 19.

As a 2-week employee, they could easily have just let her go.

They kept her on, paid her $3/hour in catastrophe pay, paid anyone who did not feel comfortable working their average weekly pay for a month and a half.

Now, as things are opening, they are reorganizing.

She was called by her manager with her options (continue working - potentially with fewer hours, take leave without pay, or separate from the company). She was given a 12-page document outlining the pros and cons of each option. Those options were carefully crafted so that there were perks for each option - with the hope that each employee could be given the option they wanted.

She had the option of a second meeting - in case the first didn't answer all her questions. If she chose the third option, she would have had a third.

Meanwhile . . . my university which teaches communication skills (among other things) gave my employee group a 3-10% pay cut (because we are not unionized, we have received 2 out of the last 4 raises the rest of the employees have received, and are now back to pre-2013 pay levels), and informed us of the pay cut through publication in the campus news digest.

I told my Dean I was jealous of my daughter - which valued her more than the University valued our pay group (many of whom are have a post-graduate degree).

Blue_true

(31,261 posts)
2. Is your daughter going to use this situation as an opportunity to change careers,
Wed Jun 10, 2020, 11:24 PM
Jun 2020

or life plans?

When I was at the lowest point in my life a person told me this "Your situation is bad, but when one door closes, if you look, a better one is opening". I thought that it was so much hogwash, even as I thanked her for her concern. The financial situation was horrible and I saw no way out. But, she was right, other doors were opening and I stumbled through them. I bounced around the bottom a lot during that long process, but I had family to help me along.

Your daughter has you, in my experience, that is a big plus for her as she reorients.

Ms. Toad

(33,915 posts)
3. It's complicated.
Wed Jun 10, 2020, 11:50 PM
Jun 2020

She has more than one chronic health condition (including one that will likely require a liver transplant). Her billed medical expenses are $200,000/year.

The liver condition makes her fatigued all the time (with unpredictable spikes in being fatigued), so she hasn't been able to finish college - everytime she has tried she gets a fatigue spike that forces her to drop out. So her options are pretty limited.

She had been working for 5 years at EarthFare, which went bankrupt in February. She hated the job, but it provided unbeatable health insurance. Starbucks is next best for health insurance - it will cost her about $1000 more a year, but she is now eligible at 3 months, and only has to work 25 hours a week to be eligible. (The cost for every other company she explored would have been about $6,000 more per year - and she would not be eligible for a year - and they require 32 hours a week, which is hard to come by since most companies don't like to move anyone to full-time with benefits.)

The day before she heard about the bankruptcy, she had applied for a job at Starbucks - planning to drop back to part time at EarthFare at 3 months and switch to Starbucks plan, and go to school part time. So the job was already in motion when she learned she was about to lose her job. It was February. I buy the refillable January mug, so I had been in daily chatting up the baristas and shift leads daily. I struggled with whether asking about work would be networking v. helicopter mom - and networking won out. I dropped in and asked the shift lead I'd been friendliest with how to move the application along since my daughter was suddenly losing her job. He told me he was never going to serve me again, since Earthfare was his favorite store. But the upshot was he took it as networking and she was able to call the right person and get an interview the next day.

For now, though, she has three out of pocket maxes in 16 months (about $10,000 total - Earthfare + ACA plan + Starbucks), and can't really afford to start over with a 4th health care plan. Unfortunately, until health care is fixed, her health and expenses to keep her alive and cancer-free are primarily what drive her employment.

After things settle down, she may look for another part-time job that pays more (but keep the Starbucks job because it provides health care). She also gets free tuition - so she might be able to finish up her degree and open up more options. Her store is pretty stable (she was able to work 40 hours a week througout the shutdown), so it's likely there will be enough employees willing to take a furlough (they pay health insurance) or separate (they pay a separation bonus) that she will be able to continue working.

Blue_true

(31,261 posts)
4. Yes, that is difficult. Your daughter's health condition is a situation that I didn't
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 12:01 AM
Jun 2020

have to deal with.

Self-employment would not be an option with the healthcare issue.

Ms. Toad

(33,915 posts)
6. She actually could do self-emplyment -
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 12:18 PM
Jun 2020

as long as the ACA isn't dismantled. There lies the rub - we've rarely gone more than a few months without a serious threat that it would be pulled out from under her and getting insurance elsewhere takes a year. She has $20,000 treatments every 7-8 weeks so a year doesn't cut it.

Her health also makes self-employment iffy, because of the cycles of fatiue (and she's not temperamentally suited for it, either).

Blue_true

(31,261 posts)
8. Running a business is difficult, mentally and physically demanding.
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 06:49 PM
Jun 2020

To me, it now looks like the path that she is on is best for her situation.

JI7

(89,173 posts)
5. Sounds like a good business decision . While things were still mostly closed I remember huge lines
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 12:08 AM
Jun 2020

at some of the drive thru starbucks. It didn't seem worth it to me but i'm not a coffee person either. I guess there are people that need their starbucks.

Ms. Toad

(33,915 posts)
7. My daughter work at one that stayed open.
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 12:29 PM
Jun 2020

Customers were non-stop. I think it a lot of it is because Starbucks works extraordinarly hard at getting their baristas to develop relationships with their customers.

Even though I make a single $40 dollar purchase in December that gets me "free" coffee for the month of January, I always feel bad about not going back in February after spending the month chatting up baristas. Nearly all of them recognized me when I came in, got my coffee started, and chatted about work. When I dropped in in February, after a week or two of not going in (I rarely go in except January), the person cleaning up the cafe area said, "hey, we were just commenting that we hadn't seen you in a while, and ran off to get the barista I had the strongest relationship wiht. That relationship building actually helped my daughter get a job there when the store she was working at went bankrupt - since I felt free to check in with them in a networking (rather than helicopter mom) capacity. Now that she works there, I get to see how much it is baked into the culture.

That kind of personal attention was a factor in choosing my college - why not my coffee? (Personally, I can't justify buying more than a brewed coffee - most of their drinks cost as much as I spend on a meal most. But for a big corporation, I think their customer service - and employee relations are pretty fantastic. So I admit to contributing to the long lines occasionally during the shut down.

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