HRPI Co-Director Charlie Tharp quoted in Bloomberg about Starbucks DEI
Starbucks Investors Approve Pay Package That Drops DEI Reference, Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) — Starbucks Corp. shareholders approved a plan
to drop a bonus tied to DEI goals for its executives and replace
it with a more general workforce target while also shifting more
compensation to financial performance.
“Starbucks’s switch to “talent” avoids the term DEI, which
has been “weaponized” by the opposition, while still making it
clear the company is seeking to broaden the pool of applicants,
according to Charles Tharp, a professor who teaches executive
compensation at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
Companies use compensation plans to highlight issues they
believe are important to investors, employees, customers, and
the general public, Tharp said. He added that opposition to the
incentives, such as a letter last year from 13 state attorneys
general questioning the legality of certain companies’ DEI
plans, will definitely spark caution going forward.
“What I hope is we don’t go to what I would call diversity
hushing, where people don’t want to talk about what they’re
doing,” Tharp said.”