How Starbucks Employees Rate Their Company: Management Scores Just 1.8 Points

Other Detailed Categories Also Score in the Mid-2 Range Out of 5 Points

Starbucks Korea has drawn attention after it was revealed that current employees gave the company's management the lowest scores in workplace evaluations, amid controversy over accusations that its "Tank Day marketing" insulted the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement.

Starbucks Employees Give Management Evaluation 1.81 Points... Even Highest 'Salary & Benefits' Scores Only 2.76

Starbucks

On May 31, the workplace community platform Blind announced that, based on an analysis of a sample of 568 Starbucks Korea employees from January last year to May this year, the overall employee rating was an average of 2.74 out of 5. In particular, among the five detailed evaluation categories, 'Management Evaluation' received the lowest score, with an average of just 1.81. Except for February, when management evaluation briefly rose to 2.00, it remained in the 1-point range throughout the survey period.

Other detailed categories scored in the mid-to-high 2-point range: ▲Salary & Benefits 2.76 ▲Corporate Culture 2.58 ▲Career Advancement 2.52 ▲Work-Life Balance 2.49. A representative from Blind pointed out, "These results indicate that Starbucks employees consider improvements in management decision-making and communication more important than salary, benefits, or work-life balance." They added that, given even the highest score—Salary & Benefits—was only in the mid-2-point range, overall employee reputation for the company cannot be considered high.

After 'Tank Day' Controversy in May, 'Starbucks' Search Volume Surges and Employee Community Activity Increases

Meanwhile, the number of searches related to "Starbucks" by Korean office workers has surged this month. Searches for "Starbucks" on Blind jumped from 2,393 in April to 91,080 in May. During the same period, the number of unique searchers soared from 944 to 46,870.

In the analysis of Starbucks-related keywords since May, "boycott" ranked first with 1,038 mentions, followed by ▲government with 646 ▲Jung Yongjin with 505 ▲partner with 453 ▲store with 452 as other major keywords.

The monthly active user (MAU) ratio on Blind, compared to the total number of Starbucks Korea employees, also reached its highest point during the evaluation period, standing at 66% this month.

On May 18, the anniversary of the May 18 Democratization Movement, Starbucks faced allegations of disparaging the movement by using phrases such as "Tank Day" and "Slam the Desk!" during a tumbler promotion. This incident sparked a boycott movement against Starbucks products, which quickly spread beyond consumers to public officials and labor groups, escalating into a significant social controversy.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.