You might think of Starbucks employees as being of the younger set, mostly high school or college kids handling customer service, maybe the occasional older adult managing the store. Which is why a Starbucks cafe in Mexico City is getting a lot of attention; the store is the first Starbucks to employee only people over the age of 60.
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The new Starbucks seniors-run store, which is located in the Colonia del Valle neighborhood of Mexico City, opened on Tuesday of this week with 14 workers aged between 55 and 66.
Starbucks Mexico CEO Christian Gurría said that the new Starbucks store is part of a partnership the coffee chain has with the National Institute for the Elderly (Inapam) to find more employment opportunities for senior citizens.
He told the Mexican news agency Notimex that, "It took us two years to land the best scheme to contribute to the elderly community in Mexico. Opening the doors of our stores to senior baristas was not a goal, it was an act of congruence with Starbucks' philosophy of inclusion."
Starbucks opens a branch run entirely by a staff aged over 55 to promote labor inclusion pic.twitter.com/PEs86G7v3h
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 5, 2018
The store has younger staff members on hand right now to help get the Starbucks seniors staff trained. There are also a few practices in place to ensure the safety of the older workers, including employing them at single-story branches, lowering the height of shelves, and limiting work shifts to a maximum of 6.5 hours.
The company guarantees each of the older workers two days off per week, plus helps with health care by providing senior employees with insurance for major medical expenses.
In reporting by Mexico News Daily, new Starbucks senior employee Carmen Lazo said, "I'm very happy and grateful to be part of this beautiful Inapam-Starbucks project that gives me the opportunity to learn something so different and removed from what I did before."
The Starbucks seniors program is expected to grow in the coming years; Gurría hopes to have 120 senior employees by next year.
