PPB April 2021

work from home, it did not necessitate a big adjustment. “We had more than a half-dozen offices in California, Chicago, Denver and other places, and people just moved home—it was the least disruptive move you can imagine, because we were just set up to do that,” White says. While managing the lockdown from an infrastructure and technology standpoint was fairly easy, White admits it was much more difficult to manage from a people perspective because of the personal challenges people were going through. “Just because the business was doing well and the software worked well, that doesn’t mean that someone who is isolated, lonely and lacking a social connection is doing well,” he says. “One of the things we did well was to take stock of the emotional realities that our employees were confronted by.” He uses himself as an example. White had recently relocated from LA to Austin, Texas, and was in lockdown alone in a new city, but he says his work and colleagues were a constant source of energy, connection and stability. “I spent a lot of time with these people on Zoom calls talking about marketing. We became a more cohesive bunch. Everyone was going through something equally challenging and it was important to feel that shared direction and purpose. As success played out over the year, there was more exuberance and gratitude being part of that team.” It was an emotion many people shared, and as a result, White says the company’s culture has become more cohesive. Like many employers over the past year, BAMKO put a lot of time, thought and effort into creating ongoing connections with employees. The company regularly sent out work-from- home kits with products like a custom calendar, scheduled virtual events and brought in guest speakers. “BAMKO has always been a global company with people collaborating across borders and time zones,” he says. “We were very well situated for this type of thing. Still, last year wasn’t just a pandemic—which was a massive, destructive force that tore people’s sense of social connection apart—but we also had racial justice protests over the summer, the election. Every person had their own set of challenges. It was tough to manage that. We had to do the best we could to give people a sense of connection and let them know they weren’t alone.” This year, the company is continuing to strategically position itself for growth with a goal of 12-percent organic growth in promotional products, which would be a new record. In February, it completed the acquisition of Gifts By Design, a Seattle, Washington-based distributor specializing in corporate awards, incentives and recognition programs. “We think the employee gifting and corporate incentives market segment is permanently altered by what happened in 2020 and work-from-home is going to be a permanent fixture in the corporate world,” White says, “and we want to be really good at that.” Tina Berres Filipski is editor of PPB. “We were really consistent about experimenting in an entrepreneurial way. We had humility to admit when what we tried didn’t work and we stopped doing it. And when something worked, we did more of it. We were quick and agile and ran experiments in different segments with different marketing and different products.” Joshua White SVP of Strategic Partnerships and General Counsel BAMKO Austin, Texas Resilient And Resourceful | FEATURE | APRIL 2021 | 35