Photo : YONHAP News
Starbucks Korea says it would close all its stores nationwide at 3 p.m. Monday to conduct training sessions for all employees to improve their historical awareness and social sensitivity.
The coffee chain, operated by E-Mart, an affiliate of Shinsegae Group, has been posting notices at its approximately two-thousand-160 stores nationwide since last Tuesday about the educational program and shortened operating hours.
This marks the first time since the company entered the South Korean market in 1999 that all its stores have shut down simultaneously.
The educational program is a follow-up measure to last month’s controversy over a marketing campaign that evoked painful memories of a brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1980.
Employees are set to watch recorded lectures by two professors, one on historical awareness and one on corporate ethics, after employees at Starbucks Korea’s headquarters and executives of E-Mart affiliates attended the live lectures on Wednesday last week.
Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin is also expected to watch the same recorded training session on Wednesday ahead of a scheduled executives’ meeting.