Two years into a turnaround that has reshaped everything from cup messages to café layouts, Starbucks is now turning its attention to the people making the drinks.
As a way to incentivize employees and improve service for customers, Starbucks is expanding opportunities for customers to tip and offering bonuses to team members in outperforming stores.
“The program reflects Starbucks’ continued commitment to offering one of the most competitive total compensation and benefits packages in the industry,” Starbucks said on April 2, reflecting CEO Brian Niccol’s effort to strengthen the business.
What is changing for Starbucks baristas
Customers can now tip baristas for mobile orders with debit and credit cards. Tipping is currently available for only in-store or drive-through orders or mobile orders paid for with a Starbucks card. Mobile orders represent a substantial and growing share of total purchases at the chain, per Rolling Out, making the expansion meaningful for workers who rely on tips to supplement their base wages.
The company is also introducing a performance-based bonus structure in which baristas and shift supervisors are rewarded as much as $1,200 per year if their coffeehouse meets and exceeds certain goals. The bonus pays out at $300 per quarter when a store hits targets tied to sales performance, operational standards, and customer service metrics, per CNBC.
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Taken together, these two incentives can increase pay by 5% to 8%.
“This reward recognizes teams that work together to deliver excellence and is part of our commitment to shared success,” Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams and Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly wrote in a letter to employees, per The Spokesman-Review.
The company will also begin paying all U.S. employees on a weekly basis and offering new leadership opportunities with the addition of a “coffeehouse coach” role. These are full-time members of management tasked with keeping locations “running smoothly.” Starbucks said it made the shift to weekly pay after hearing consistent feedback from workers on biweekly schedules who asked for more frequent paychecks.
These initiatives will begin in July 2026, with the first bonus payouts arriving in the fall.
Starbucks’ turnaround context
The changes are the latest chapter in Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” strategy, which he launched after taking the helm in September 2024. The plan has centered on improving the in-store customer experience, from cozier café designs to a four-minute order fulfillment target.
The strategy appears to be gaining traction. In its most recent quarterly results, Starbucks reported that U.S. customer traffic rose for the first time in two years, per Reuters via Yahoo Finance.
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The company said it has invested more than $500 million in additional staffing hours and expanded rosters since the turnaround began, per Reuters via Yahoo Finance.
Starbucks has also said it plans to add 25,000 additional seats to its U.S. cafés by the end of the fiscal year, per NewsNation.
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Starbucks’ union complication
Not all baristas will see these benefits right away. The bonus program does not immediately apply to unionized stores, which represent approximately 5% of Starbucks’ U.S. locations.
“This new program, at the approximately 5% of U.S. locations where partners have a union, will be subject to collective bargaining as required by federal law,” Grams and Kelly wrote, per CNBC.
Starbucks Workers United has organized nearly 600 stores, and negotiations between the company and the union have been stalled for more than a year. Unionized baristas have previously said the demands of the new service model have added strain without commensurate pay increases.
Two proxy advisory groups also warned shareholders earlier this year that Starbucks may be neglecting financial and reputational risks stemming from labor disputes, per Reuters via U.S. News.
What is changing for Starbucks employees in July 2026:
- Tipping expanded to mobile app orders and in-store scan-and-pay transactions, per CNBC
- Performance bonuses of up to $1,200 per year ($300 per quarter) for baristas and shift supervisors at qualifying stores
- Weekly pay for all U.S. store employees, replacing biweekly schedules
- New “coffeehouse coach” full-time management role at store level
- Combined bonus and tipping changes could raise total barista pay by 5% to 8%, per Starbucks
The bonuses and expanded tipping represent the clearest signal yet that Niccol’s turnaround is moving beyond the customer experience and into workforce investment. Whether it is enough to ease tensions with organized labor and sustain the traffic recovery the company just posted remains to be seen.
Related: Starbucks overhauls rewards program, adds new customer perks
