Verizon has topped the list of how the top 100 largest employers responded to the pandemic. Two ISPs made the top 10.
The magazine looked at public companies from mid-March through May 7, looking at 22 categories from attendance policy changes to community relief and rated them on scale from one to five, five being the highest. With an average of 3.87 Verizon came out on top.
Verizon got particularly high marks for its sick leave policies and also scored well with dependent care efforts and community contributions.
Forbes also said the company had not laid off any of its workers while committing $54 million in donations to charities and nonprofits.
Specifically, Forbes broke out the following efforts:
•"Offered extra compensation for full-time employees still working in the field or offices.
• "Held back on cutting service for customers struggling to pay because of the pandemic.' [That was also an element of an FCC pledge almost all ISPs agreed to.]
• "Launched a COVID-19-specific leave-of-absence policy that provides 100% of pay for up to eight weeks, reduced to 60% of pay for up to 16 weeks."
AT&T came in number three on the list at 3.83 thanks to work-from-home-policies, and a $10 million donation to remote learning, among other efforts. T-Mobile was number five at 3.77.
The highest-ranked cable ISPS was Charter, which came in at number 12.
Of particular note was its decision to permanently raise its minimum wage to $20 an hour over the next two years, and its donation of $12 million worth of commercial time to COVID-19 public-service announcements.
Other top 20 notables were Alphabet (Google) at 16, Apple at 18.
