Organisational Change in a post Covid-19 world

The pandemic is raising questions about business performance in a brutal fashion. 

Organisations that have thrived are those with a culture that allows them to be both agile and responsive.  At the heart of this lies trusted relationships and pre-planning, but also experience at problem-solving across functions and the supply chain.  Consequently, being resilient is about having a team with the necessary skills and collaborative instincts to react to a wide of range of events.  Everyone needs to focus on a single outcome that might be resolved in a number of different ways.  Developing this capability isn’t easy and requires development and leadership to encourage the right behaviours and cultural dynamics.

So, how have these key factors played out during the pandemic? 

Whilst there are many issues affecting organisations, four seem to typify much of the feedback we have been hearing.

Firstly, ‘what next’?  Will successive outbreaks trigger further operational responses and what will this mean for the future viability of the business?  Furthermore, what skills and capabilities will be required to survive and prosper as a result of more turmoil?  Most organisations respond to a crisis effectively but are poor at engraining change to ensure the right operational structures and behaviours are in place  to prevent future disruption. Essentially, they need to create a culture that encourages people do the right thing, instinctively.  Subsequently, when disruption does occur plans can be deployed which ensure the operational response will not de-rail the whole organisation, again.

Secondly, ‘what have we learnt’?  Organisations need to take stock and understand what went well, what didn’t and how they need to adapt to become resilient for future incidents.  Historically, there is only a short period of institutional memory to absorb lessons-learnt before incidents are forgotten, therefore capturing this moment is vital.  

Thirdly, there has been an enormous amount of change delivered very quickly.  How and what should be kept, and what stopped?  One national retailer mentioned that Covid-19 has illustrated the benefits of remote working on a dramatic scale and that it is here to stay.  While the technology has been around for years, it has taken a crisis for people to see its potential. But, in the longer-term will it be relevant for everyone?  They mentioned that people are under 30 require more support and guidance which is easy to provide in an office but tricky at home.  One major infrastructure provider noted that he’s now able to make decisions faster but this has relied on existing trusted relationships to do this, which are difficult to forge through a computer screen.  This suggests that actually in reality, face-to-face interactions still matter; relationships are key to most organisations and they are difficult to foster via video conference.  

Finally, many operating models are running at half capacity due to lack of demand.  This is not sustainable in the long-term and even more with the high level of uncertainty that currently exists.  How do you reorganise and redevelop your operating model to make it more flexible to reduce cost yet also be flexible, agile and responsive?  Normally, these are not mutually inclusive factors, one comes at the expense of the other.  Balancing these competing factors will not be easy.

In the end it usually comes down to people leadership and management.  This blend of soft skills is difficult to measure yet has proved vital to an organisations’ survival and performance.  Now, more than ever, culture matters. 

For more information about our work…

Sally Blackwell, Melanie Cook and Charles Brindley are specialists in Operational Readiness and Organisational Change. If you would like to find out more about how they can help your organisation through and post Covid-19, simply fill out the form below to open the additional resource.