Starbucks aims to retain employees by providing parents’ health insurance
Top business and technology news for April 12, 2017. Part of the daily The China Project news roundup "Did this phone call get results?"
Coffee giant Starbucks has done brisk business in China since it opened its first store in Beijing in 1999. The company is currently opening more than one store a day. In December last year, CEO Howard Schultz predicted Starbucks’ China business to eventually become bigger than its home market. The company has now announced that it will provide health insurance that covers serious and chronic illnesses to parents of employees in China, according to the Washington Post and Xinhua News Agency (in Chinese). The plan will be available to any parent of a Starbucks employee who has worked for Starbucks China for at least two years, as long as the parent is under 75 and resides in mainland China. The policy is expected to improve employee retention, as it responds to the increasing concerns of an aging society: According to Starbucks, a recent employee survey showed that 70 percent of their employees in China worried about the health of their parents.
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