Organizational Communication and Workplace Dynamics: The Impact of Paid Family Leave Policies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many organizations to implement changes to manage operational and economic challenges. These changes indicate attempts by organizational communication to reduce uncertainty and jointly transcend hardships among different cohorts in the workplace. In response to worker vulnerability during the pandemic, U.S. firms have increased efforts to expand paid family leave (PFL) policies, leading to some employees’ approval and others’ disapproval. This paper explores how PFL policies implemented by private U.S. employers during the pandemic altered workplace morale, teamwork, and productivity. I find that policy expansion corresponds with a significant polarization of workplace morale, employing a difference-in-differences t -test on twenty-six Glassdoor company review sites over fifteen months of the pandemic. Notably, I discover that employees tend to attribute PFL-related utility to coworkers and PFL-related disutility to management. These observations suggest that PFL policies hold remarkable value for both employers and employees. This study demonstrates how to leverage company reviews on large digital platforms to empirically examine workplace dynamics and the ways in which employees view and interact with each other.