Starbucks Won Aon Hewitt’s “Best Employers - China 2015”
On Mar 20, Starbucks was awarded as Aon Hewitt’s Best Employer – China 2015. This program is conducted by Aon Hewitt, a comprehensive global leader in human resource consulting, in partnership with LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking site. Based on Aon Hewitt’s professional measuring tools of human resources and the newly-introduced big data of professional networking, the result came after investigations into various outstanding candidate enterprises.
This is the second time that Starbucks has won the award of Aon Hewitt’s Best Employer in China after 2013. Once again, it proves the prominent achievements of Starbucks’ constant efforts in China in cultivating enterprise culture and training talents. Earlier in 2014, Starbucks was also named as one of the Top 10 Best Employers in China by Zhaopin.com.
“We are very happy to win the award of Aon Hewitt’s Best Employer in China again. This honor not only belongs to the company, but also to all the partners in Starbucks China. It is their enthusiasm and devotion that make the success of Starbucks. I am proud of our partners,” said Belinda Wong, President of Starbucks China. “Meanwhile, this honor also fully demonstrate the solid foundation Starbucks has laid for its development in China in the past 16 years. More importantly, it is the huge recognition and reinforcement of our culture and our efforts behind partner engagement and talent development. ”
According to Aon Hewitt’s survey and observation of best employers, two perspectives should be considered in branding as employers. The first is the recognition of both exterior job seekers and interior employees. The second is the overall leading advantage over the market average in various aspects such as professionalism, brand reputation, effective leadership, and high performance culture.
Employers are called as “partners” in Starbucks. As the soul of the unique Starbucks experience, partnership is always regarded as the cornerstone of Starbucks’s success. Therefore, apart from offering competitive welfare in insurance, health care etc., Starbucks also provides its partners with the opportunity to share the success of the company by obtaining Starbucks’s “Bean Stock”. Meanwhile, the company actively works to cultivate a warm and homelike culture and to build a platform for its partners to showcase their talents, helping them realize their career goals. To achieve this, Starbucks has developed a complete talent development system, which includes establishing Starbucks College in China and launching a talent exchange program in order to offer all its partners more and better opportunities for personal growth and career advancement. Besides, Starbucks always encourages its partners to actively take part in community service activities and to build up their responsibility and confidence and improve their self-management ability and communication skills while integrating into and contributing to the local community where their stores are located.
Since 1999 when Starbucks opened its first store in China, it has already opened more than 1500 stores in almost 90 cities in China, with more than 25,000 partners. With its constant development in China, Starbucks will stick to the importance attached to its partners and its long-term commitment, push forward and realize the common growth and sustainable development of the enterprise and its partners, and continue to provide its customers with the unique Starbucks experience.
Appendix One:
Starbucks is a company of “partnership”. It values and respects its partners. Besides, it provides its partners with a very good opportunity for growth by offering them excellent tutors and platforms, helping every partner to achieve their personal values.
—By Jackie, a partner from Beijing, who has joined Starbucks for two years
The nine years in Starbucks is a very precious experience and a meaningful journey in my life, enriching both my work and life.
—By Lisa, a partner from Chengdu, who has joined Starbucks for nine years
Making coffee is my career. In Starbucks, I hope to offer our customers a consistent Starbucks experience with my partners. How large is your dream, how big is the platform Starbucks offers you.
—By Alina, a partner from Qingdao, who has joined Starbucks for seven years
I joined this big family of care and love in January 2013. My colleagues and I encourage and support each other. Our customers are our good friends in tasting and sharing coffees. How wonderful are all the experiences here! I find that every one of us, either a star barista with strict standards or a shift supervisor with good control of the store, a district coffee master promoting coffee culture, or even a colleague working on community service, can play a positive role in connecting us with customers and communities and caring for our home together.
—By Jeff, a partner from Changsha, who has joined Starbucks for two years
In Starbucks, I have a very good starting point. I met a very excellent tutor in my first store, which brought great help to my career development. This is not just about a job. More importantly, it is about a deep emotion.
—By Constantine, a partner from Beijing, who has joined Starbucks for ten years
Starbucks has witnessed my growth from a barista to the manager of a store as the first Starbucks partners in Wuhan. It has also witnessed my change from a little girl who formed a family in Starbucks to a mother of a “Star baby” in this year. I grow with Starbucks and we move forward hand in hand. Onward！
—By Jessica, a partner from Wuhan, who has joined Starbucks for seven years
In Starbucks, every coffee is a connecting bond between the customers and us. I am not just making coffees. More importantly, I am sharing the enthusiasm and hobby of coffee.
—By Habby, a partner from Changchun, who has joined Starbucks for two and half a year
Thanks for Starbucks’s trust in its partners. It is this trust that gives me a wider platform to give full play to my talents.
—By Johnny, a partner from Guangzhou, who has joined Starbucks for nine years
I gain career, growth and happiness in Starbucks. More significantly, I find the direction to move forward in Starbucks, and become a better me.
—By Candy, a partner from Kunming, who has joined Starbucks for four years
Appendix Two:
Starbucks China University
Starbucks China University is established in 2011 to support all the partners of Starbucks to achieve their career goals. It is the world’s leading corporate university that focuses on coffee knowledge and culture. Starbucks China University designs its personalized learning paths based on the core emphasis on its partners, draws on foreign learning resources and creates a partner-oriented learning system, which is featured by electronic and mobile learning styles, personalized learning experiences, mutual encouraging leaning mechanisms that connect each other etc. This system can be divided into four parts, namely leadership college, coffee & culture college, retail management college and functional college. Among them, coffee college is the most special one. It is specially established as coffee is the core business of Starbucks, and it is aimed at spreading coffee knowledge and inheriting Starbucks culture.
Starbucks Partner Family Forum
In order to further strengthen the connection between partners, Starbucks always attaches great importance to the sense of belonging of their partners to the company and takes them into every consideration, hoping to let them take the company as their second family. To achieve this goal, Starbucks has specially set up the Partner Family Forum, whose idea comes from the Chinese traditional parents’ meeting. Starbucks launched its first Partner Family Forum in 2012. The launch of this unique form of communication is one of the series of moves promoted by Starbucks to achieve its Best Employer goal. It shows the devotion of Starbucks to becoming one of the most trusted, favored and enduring brands in the world. It emphasizes the company’s commitment to help its partners in personal growth and long-term development.
Starbucks Talent Exchange Program
Starbucks China launched a talent exchange program for its store partners in 2014. Through this program, store partners of Starbucks will have the opportunity to apply for work in other cities in China or in other overseas markets, which can help them improve their skills in making coffee, enhance their professional levels and enrich their life experiences.
Starbucks Partners ‘Going Home’
‘Going Home’ for further career development is a very considerate move of Starbucks that has received numerous praises from its partners. With the entering of Starbucks into new cities, more than 120 well-trained young partners have gained the opportunity to return to their hometowns and have achieved new career developments and personal growths there. This move highlights the company’s care and respect for its partners and creates many heart-touching stories about partners’ going home.
Starbucks Community Service
Community involvements is the core concept of Starbucks. Starbucks organizes its partners to participate in community service activities every year, building Starbucks into a unique company through the lens of humanity. In the fiscal year of 2014, the partners and volunteers of Starbucks have devoted 118,849 hours in community service in total, improving themselves greatly while helping the community. Their responsibility and self-confidence have been greatly enhanced, as well as their self-management ability and communication skills, which are all precious qualities and abilities for young people.
