As of Oct. 1, employees at coffee giant Starbucks now have access to a wider range of fertility benefits.
The retailer says it expanded its Family Expansion Reimbursement program beyond adoption expenses to reimburse for surrogacy, as well as reimbursing for intrauterine insemination expenses that are not covered by insurance.
This benefit will reimburse employees up to $10,000 per qualifying event, up to a lifetime maximum of $30,000.
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Starbucks says it is also increasing coverage for fertility services. Under the new plan, lifetime maximums for fertility benefits under all Starbucks medical plans are increasing from $15,000 to $25,000 for fertility services and from $5,000 to $10,000 for prescription drugs.
The benefit will be available to all eligible full- and part-time employees.
“We are consistently evolving our benefits as we continue to listen and learn from our partners (employees) and the Family Expansion Reimbursement program†¯extends Starbucks†¯long-history of putting partners first,” a company spokesperson told HRE. “It has long been our belief that when we put our partners first, the result is an elevated Starbucks experience for our stores, our customers and our communities.”
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Contraception and fertility benefits have seen a slight decline in recent years. Employers offering contraception coverage dipped from 74% last year to 71% this year, according to SHRM’s annual survey. Employers covering IVF and infertility treatments also had some dramatic decreases in the past year, from 27% to 19% and from 25% to 18%, respectively.
Starbucks has been beefing up its benefits in recent years to help attract and retain top talent. Last year, the coffee retailer partnered with Care.com to create “Care@Work,” which connects families with caregivers online. Care@Work provides employees who work at U.S. company-owned stores with 10 subsidized backup care days a year for children and adults (regardless of how many hours they work).
More recently, the company also enhanced its EAP program and added mental health training for store managers.
