With the advent of the 2020 novel coronavirus pandemic, and the impending recession, companies are facing massive challenges with how to support their workers, customers, and communities in the face of declining revenues. Every industry and business will be tested, and the course of action may be different for each.

JUST Capital believes that this presents an opportunity for corporate leaders to put their commitment to purpose-driven leadership and stakeholder capitalism into practice.

Accordingly, JUST Capital is regularly surveying the American public to identify their views of business conduct during the coronavirus crisis, as well as their priorities for corporate action.

In order to understand what the public believe is needed from corporate America, JUST Capital has developed a number of initiatives, including:

• Tracking how companies are responding to current challenges;
• Identifying key principles that should be adopted by companies; and
• Highlighting real-time examples of companies taking the lead.

Central to these initiatives is JUST Capital’s Corporate Response Tracker.

This tracker researches and evaluates what America’s 100 largest public employers are doing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It looks at 15 different categories of company response, ranging from contributions to the community, through to policies on hours of work, pay and employee layoffs.

The tracker features a “drill down” feature, where the user can explore more detailed information about a company’s response. For example, where an organisation is offering a community relief fund, any member of the public can drill down to find out how much a company has committed to helping communities or organisations.

This enables easy comparisons across companies as to what their practices are in any of the 15 company response dimensions.

The tracker uses information found on company websites, corporate press releases, and reputable news sources to evaluate what actions America’s 100 largest public employers are taking in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a companion to this tracker, JUST Capital has identified five principles to help guide corporate America during the coronavirus crisis. These principles were constructed from five years of public opinion research on what constitutes just business behaviour. The principles are:

• Support workers’ health and financial security;
• Adopt practices to minimise job loss;
• Put workers first, and work with government to do so;
• Support communities, local suppliers, and customers; and
• Have the C-Suite lead by example.

Each of these principles is supported on JUST Capital’s website by examples of companies and the actions they are taking that match these principles – for example, steps they are taking to reduce job losses, how they are supporting the local community, or the changes they are making to employee leave policies.

Recognising that the public’s opinions evolve over time and that circumstances change, the information provided by JUST Capital is updated through regular surveys of the American public. The surveys identify the public’s views of what just business is during the coronavirus crisis, as well as what they believe corporate America’s priorities should be.

1. The advent of the 2020 novel coronavirus pandemic, and the impending recession, presents an opportunity for corporate leaders to put their commitment to purpose-driven leadership and stakeholder capitalism into practice.
2. Regarding the expectations of the American public in respect to corporate behaviour, the public appears to be divided on how they believe corporations are responding to the crisis. Whether or not a company is disproportionately affected by coronavirus, Americans still expect them to respond in a similar way.
3. Americans want companies to minimise exposure among their employees. At the same time, Americans want companies to maintain healthcare coverage, over financial compensation, in the event of job loss, furloughs, or layoffs.
4. The majority of Americans polled want companies to support their communities during the COVID-19 crisis. Whether or not companies are currently experiencing financial distress, people still expect them to support their communities during the pandemic.
5. JUST Capital has created a tracker to help assess what corporate America is doing to address the effects of coronavirus. They have found 15 of the most common actions. Examples include community relief funds, adjusted hours of work for staff, layoffs, executive pay cuts and relaxed attendance policies.
6. JUST Capital’s corporate tracker allows any member of the public to identify what America’s 100 largest companies are doing in respect to the 15 actions. The public can drill down into each action for more detail.
7. Recognising that the public’s opinions evolve as circumstances change, JUST Capital continues to survey the public and update its website with results.
8. What constitutes the correct and just course of action is impossible to define, and companies must consider their next steps that could impact their stakeholders for months, if not years, into the future.
9. The strategic decisions that companies, government and civil society make today will ripple across the economic system for years to come.