How the pandemic and social upheaval spurred companies to step up

The global pandemic and the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman prompted companies to reevaluate their approach. That was the case at PBS, which celebrated its 50th anniversary amid the uncertainty and upheaval.

“We didn’t think it would be celebrating it quite that way,” said PBS CEO Paula Kerger.

During the pandemic, PBS was able to make changes including expanding digital programming — all while its employees worked remotely. Through its free teacher education program, LearningMedia, PBS stations nationwide were able to provide telecourses about subjects such as science, English, and math that were distributed on public TV and helped educate kids stuck at home and who didn’t have access to broadband.

PBS also accelerated its push into digital content, which it had already been increasingly emphasizing. But the pandemic caused the organization to shift quicker than it had originally expected.

Kerger said PBS was used by about a million teachers monthly at the beginning of the pandemic. But within a two-week period, that number rose to four million.

Apart from the pandemic, a reason for investment firm TPG to engage their employees and porfolio companies was the police murder in Minneapolis that spurred a social movement across the United States, said partner and chief human resources officer Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri. The firm’s ongoing investment and work in DEI, which includes diversifying its workforce, a board diversity effort that has helped add more than 120 women directors to its portfolio company boards, and TPG NEXT, a newly launched initiative to back diverse managers, helped create foundation from which it could act quickly and engage with employees

The push to diversify workers and focus more on environmental, social, and governance considerations is good for social reasons, but also for the bottom line, said Kelly Schmitt, CEO of charitable donation and grant management company Benevity. According to Benevity’s research, companies that encourage and engage their employees in both charitable giving and volunteering had 57% less turnover.

The same applies to diversity and inclusion, said Peggy Alford, executive vice president of global sales at PayPal. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a topic that hasn’t always resonated within companies buffeted by competing priorities, she said. Yet, by analyzing the numbers, Alford and PayPal came to a different conclusion.

“It’s really about ensuring that you’re much more competitive in the market and that your products resonate with customers across the globe that you are serving today, or that you want to serve, and that creates a much stronger business case,” Alford said.

Part of being more competitive also means focusing on your employees and not always your shareholders, said Alford. The driver for shareholder value stems from having a happy and engaged workforce.

In 2017, PayPal established an employee relief fund to help workers struggling to make ends meet or facing hardships. The company found that even though PayPal paid at or above market rates, some workers still felt they weren’t financially secure.

PayPal then set a goal to increase its employees’ net disposable income—the amount they have left over after paying taxes and necessary expenses—to 20%, said Alford. Since then, the company has made substantial changes including raising wages, making every employee a shareholder, and offering financial learning and counseling programs that have helped it raise net disposable income to 16%.

“It’s just something that we felt is the right thing to do, and it will ensure that our employees feel like PayPal is a place they want to work,” Alford said.