Latest news with #corporatepolicy
Daily Mail
14-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Starbucks issues ultimatum to staff in latest attempt to turn around struggling chain
The morning rush just got a little earlier for some coffee-sipping corporate types. Starbucks' top boss, Brian Niccol, said the coffee chain will now make its corporate employees come into the office for four days each week. For months, employees needed to show up at the office only three times each week. The new policy is set to kick in on September 29. Niccol said employees should expect to come into offices Monday through Thursday for 'common days.' All managers at support centers are now required to relocate to Seattle or Toronto within 12 months. 'Being in person also helps us build and strengthen our culture. As we work to turn the business around, all these things matter more than ever,' the chief executive said. 'We want leaders and people managers to be physically present with their teams.' The update applies to workers at Starbucks' Seattle and Toronto support centers, along with regional offices across North America. Niccol, who will complete a year in the job in less than two months, has been steering Starbucks back to its coffeehouse roots by focusing on enhancing in-store experience and reducing dependence on mobile and to-go orders. In February, the coffee chain operator asked the remotely working vice president level leadership to begin relocating to Seattle or Toronto. It is now extending this requirement to all support center people leaders, who are expected to move within 12 months. Starbucks has been accelerating the roll out of new staffing and service model across company-owned North American stores to revive sales growth after struggling in the face of rising inflation and economic uncertainty.
Bloomberg
09-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
T-Mobile Halts Diversity Policies in Response to FCC's Demands
T-Mobile US Inc. has rolled back policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion to appease the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, who has made clear that merger deals won't be approved without taking such steps. 'We recognize that the legal and policy landscape surrounding DEI under federal law has changed,' T-Mobile wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr dated July 8. The company has conducted a comprehensive review of T-Mobile's policies, programs and activities and as a result is ending its DEI-related policies 'in name and substance,' according to the letter.
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
More than 200 S&P 500 companies scrubbed 'diversity' and 'equity' from annual reports in 2025
More than 200 S&P 500 (^GSPC) companies scrubbed words such as "diversity" and "equity" from their annual reports in 2025, according to Freshfields, a law firm and data provider, and nearly 60% fewer S&P 500 companies are using the phrase "diversity, equity, and inclusion." These new counts provided by Freshfields reinforce a widening corporate retreat from DEI this year after scrutiny of diversity policies intensified in Washington, D.C. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order ending federal DEI programs and ordering US agencies to "combat illegal private sector DEI actions." Some big companies, including Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), McDonald's (MCD), Amazon (AMZN), JPMorgan (JPM), Target (TGT), and Tractor Supply (TSCO), have proactively announced about-faces on their diversity policies. Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton told Yahoo Finance last month that the company's goal in changing its DEI policies was to "remove" itself "from any sort of discourse that people viewed to be political or social in its orientation." Many are also swapping out words such as 'diversity" and "equity' from their annual reports and instead using terms like inclusion, belonging, and meritocratic workplace. "We're observing a shift in language," ISS-Corporate executive director Kosmas Papadoupoulos said. Bank of America (BAC) and BlackRock (BLK) were among the firms on Wall Street that made such changes. Bank of America removed all eight references to "diversity and inclusion" in its report filed in February, compared with its filing the year before. In several places, the nation's second-largest bank replaced "diversity" with "opportunity," including renaming the diversity and inclusion group within its human resources department the opportunity and inclusion group. BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, also removed four references to "diversity" in its latest annual report, including replacing a section titled "diversity, equity and inclusion" with one called "connectivity and inclusivity." JPMorgan Chase has also dropped almost all mentions of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" from its annual report and rebranded its diversity programs to "opportunity" initiatives. What's not happening so far in 2025 is any shareholder support for DEI changes of any type, for or against. None of this season's investor-led DEI-focused proposals that went to a vote received majority shareholder approval, though the percentage of "anti-DEI" filings compared to "pro-DEI" filings has jumped in recent years. Support across DEI proposals for S&P 500 firms hovered between 0.1% to 43.9%, Freshfields found, with support for proposals opposed to DEI below 2%. Freshfields and other firms that track the measures identify anti-DEI measures as those that are skeptical of the initiatives and have an end goal to curtail or eliminate them. Pro-DEI proposals, on the other hand, are considered those that preserve or enhance a company's focus on the initiatives. This year, 57 S&P 500 companies faced 65 DEI-related measures, 26 of which were anti-DEI measures. Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy nonprofit that promotes environmental and social justice issues, called this year's DEI campaigns "triumphant" based on shareholders' rejection of anti-DEI measures. That included defeats for anti-DEI measures proposed at major US companies like Apple (AAPL), Goldman Sachs (GS), Costco (COST), Levi Strauss (LEVI), Deere (DE), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), and Disney (DIS). Softer language added to corporate filings may help avoid the ire of Trump's executive orders, Behar said, but additional factors are influencing DEI, such as the SEC's updated guidance in February that makes it easier for companies to exclude shareholder proposals, particularly those related to social issues. Prior guidelines required the SEC to consider a proposal's "broad societal impact" when reviewing a company's "no-action requests" that can keep proposals off their voting agendas. New guidance instead says the SEC can consider a company's particular facts and circumstances. On top of that, there's a lot of uncertainty for companies that are federal contractors, Behar said, after the US Supreme Court ruled that federal district courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions. A district court in Maryland issued an order enjoining Trump's DEI executive order, but the Fourth Circuit appellate court ruled that the order could stand but applies only to contractors' DEI programs that violate federal antidiscrimination laws. "As of Friday, now ... nobody knows what to do," Behar said. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
More than 200 S&P 500 companies scrubbed 'diversity' and 'equity' from annual reports in 2025
More than 200 S&P 500 (^GSPC) companies scrubbed words such as "diversity" and "equity" from their annual reports in 2025, according to Freshfields, a law firm and data provider, and nearly 60% fewer S&P 500 companies are using the phrase "diversity, equity, and inclusion." These new counts provided by Freshfields reinforce a widening corporate retreat from DEI this year after scrutiny of diversity policies intensified in Washington, D.C. On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order ending federal DEI programs and ordering US agencies to "combat illegal private sector DEI actions." Some big companies, including Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), McDonald's (MCD), Amazon (AMZN), JPMorgan (JPM), Target (TGT), and Tractor Supply (TSCO), have proactively announced about-faces on their diversity policies. Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton told Yahoo Finance last month that the company's goal in changing its DEI policies was to "remove" itself "from any sort of discourse that people viewed to be political or social in its orientation." Many are also swapping out words such as 'diversity" and "equity' from their annual reports and instead using terms like inclusion, belonging, and meritocratic workplace. "We're observing a shift in language," ISS-Corporate executive director Kosmas Papadoupoulos said. Bank of America (BAC) and BlackRock (BLK) were among the firms on Wall Street that made such changes. Bank of America removed all eight references to "diversity and inclusion" in its report filed in February, compared with its filing the year before. In several places, the nation's second-largest bank replaced "diversity" with "opportunity," including renaming the diversity and inclusion group within its human resources department the opportunity and inclusion group. BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, also removed four references to "diversity" in its latest annual report, including replacing a section titled "diversity, equity and inclusion" with one called "connectivity and inclusivity." JPMorgan Chase has also dropped almost all mentions of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" from its annual report and rebranded its diversity programs to "opportunity" initiatives. What's not happening so far in 2025 is any shareholder support for DEI changes of any type, for or against. None of this season's investor-led DEI-focused proposals that went to a vote received majority shareholder approval, though the percentage of "anti-DEI" filings compared to "pro-DEI" filings has jumped in recent years. Support across DEI proposals for S&P 500 firms hovered between 0.1% to 43.9%, Freshfields found, with support for proposals opposed to DEI below 2%. Freshfields and other firms that track the measures identify anti-DEI measures as those that are skeptical of the initiatives and have an end goal to curtail or eliminate them. Pro-DEI proposals, on the other hand, are considered those that preserve or enhance a company's focus on the initiatives. This year, 57 S&P 500 companies faced 65 DEI-related measures, 26 of which were anti-DEI measures. Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy nonprofit that promotes environmental and social justice issues, called this year's DEI campaigns "triumphant" based on shareholders' rejection of anti-DEI measures. That included defeats for anti-DEI measures proposed at major US companies like Apple (AAPL), Goldman Sachs (GS), Costco (COST), Levi Strauss (LEVI), Deere (DE), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), and Disney (DIS). Softer language added to corporate filings may help avoid the ire of Trump's executive orders, Behar said, but additional factors are influencing DEI, such as the SEC's updated guidance in February that makes it easier for companies to exclude shareholder proposals, particularly those related to social issues. Prior guidelines required the SEC to consider a proposal's "broad societal impact" when reviewing a company's "no-action requests" that can keep proposals off their voting agendas. New guidance instead says the SEC can consider a company's particular facts and circumstances. On top of that, there's a lot of uncertainty for companies that are federal contractors, Behar said, after the US Supreme Court ruled that federal district courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions. A district court in Maryland issued an order enjoining Trump's DEI executive order, but the Fourth Circuit appellate court ruled that the order could stand but applies only to contractors' DEI programs that violate federal antidiscrimination laws. "As of Friday, now ... nobody knows what to do," Behar said. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices
Fast Company
10-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Why Costco CEO Ron Vachris is Fast Company's Visionary of the Year
Last June, conservative activist Robby Starbuck launched a campaign targeting 'woke' companies, threatening boycotts unless they renounced their policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through the end of 2024, many companies buckled, including Tractor Supply Co., John Deere, Harley-Davidson, and Walmart. The movement's momentum continued to grow after the November election, claiming McDonald's, Target, Amazon, Meta, PBS, and others. Then the anti-DEI mob ran into Ron Vachris, a guy who started at Costco as a forklift driver more than 40 years ago and rose to become the CEO in 2024. In January, the National Center for Public Policy Research submitted an anti-DEI proposal at Costco's annual shareholder meeting. On January 23, Vachris and the company's board of directors unanimously recommended that shareholders reject the proposal, and more than 98% of shareholders did just that. Three days later, 19 Republican state attorneys general sent Vachris a letter demanding Costco end its DEI policies. Vachris and Costco didn't budge, which is why Fast Company is recognizing him as the inaugural recipient of the World Changing Ideas Visionary of the Year. Vachris declined to talk to Fast Company. (Who can blame him? The last thing he needs is to look like he's taking a victory lap.) 'Vachris's actions,' says David Glasgow, a DEI expert at NYU Law School, 'provided a good example for other organizations that are feeling a lot of fear and anxiety right now.' Studies from McKinsey, MIT, and others confirm the long-term financial benefits for companies with strong DEI policies. 'They tend to have teams that are more creative. Workers tend to be happier. There's less attrition and turnover when you have a focus on inclusion,' says Northwestern University's Alvin Tillery. Costco retains workers at a higher rate than its competitors, and employees earn a median annual wage of $47,000 (compared with about $27,000 at Walmart). Vachris, a prime example to shelf-stocking employees that Costco rewards top performers, may also inspire other leaders to stand up for their principles.
