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A Special Effort: Starbucks is Reaching Out to People With Disabilities — Both as Employees and as Customers

By Michael Corkery
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal Online, November 14, 2005
www-app5.wa.gov/esd/northwest/Whats_New/
storyarchive/THE_JOURNAL_REPORT_starbucks.pdf

If Starbucks has its way, its future work force will look more like Michelle Penman.

Thirty-six-year-old Ms. Penman, who has cerebral palsy, spends three hours getting ready for work every morning. Because she has trouble speaking and has limited mobility, customers must write down their orders and place them on her wheelchair. She returns with their coffee and food on a tray or in a backpack affixed to her motorized wheelchair.

The Seattle-based coffee giant has already turned Ms. Penman into something of a company icon. The Starbucks CEO mentions her in his speeches as an example of the devotion of the company's work force, and says he keeps her picture in his office. Now Starbucks Corp. wants to make Ms. Penman a literal model employee. As the company expands its outlets, it is trying to tap into the growing pool of job seekers with disabilities.

The goal: to make its stores more inviting to customers with disabilities, as well as their caretakers, family members and friends.

"This is a group that most businesses have not addressed," says May Snowden, Starbucks' vice president, global diversity. "As I look at changes in demographics, it is one of the groups that are very important." Indeed, people with disabilities have discretionary spending power of $220 billion annually, according to the American Association of People With Disabilities. Of the 70 million families in the U.S., more than 20 million have at least one member with a disability, according to the association.

For Starbucks, the equation is simple. "Customers tend to patronize a business that is like them," says Jim Donald, president and chief executive officer.

The Starbucks effort, which is still in its early stages, is proceeding on a couple of fronts. The company recently hired Marthalee Galeota, who worked with Seattle-area nonprofits on disability matters, as senior diversity specialist in charge of disability issues. The job goes beyond making sure Starbucks complies with the Americans With Disabilities Act, the law that mandates equal access to jobs and services for the disabled. Ms. Galeota focuses on establishing a company wide etiquette for a range of issues.

For instance, she has changed the labels on tables designated for wheelchair users to read, "For a customer with a disability," instead of "Disabled customers." The company also has designed its counters at a height that is easily reached by customers in wheelchairs, and the majority of its roughly 10,000 stores around the world have at least one handicapped-accessible entrance.

In addition, Ms. Galeota is working to incorporate disability etiquette into employee training. For example, employees should ask a customer with a disability if he or she would like help, rather than automatically lending a hand; they should also refrain from petting a working service dog for the blind.