The unprecedented disruption of the past two years has transformed the way many organisations operate. The question is: how adaptable is your business, and what happens if you can’t keep up? Paul O’Donnell has five tips to help business leaders embrace transformation.

As firms slowly remove the dust sheets and move beyond this extraordinary and disruptive pandemic period, two potential futures emerge for firms and their employees.

In the first of these two futures are those organisations intent on returning to the pre-pandemic workplace. Their employees are likely to experience difficult working conditions, outdated work practices, and eroding culture.

In the second category are those firms that see a future in which there is no going back. They understand that we have never before undergone a period of such collective transformation in working arrangements, cultural practices, applications of technology and business value propositions.

These businesses will not only respond to new demands, but will also create new markets. Their leaders will re-purpose resources and pivot to new ideas over the next 18 months. Their employees will experience real innovation, considerable learning, and meaningful opportunity.

The difference between these two types of organisation is agility — the ability to think differently and decentralise decision-making — and it is in the agile organisation that the best talent will want to work. In this environment, leaders will take what they have learned during the pandemic and blend it with the best of their existing work practices.

Here are five questions for leaders to consider as they figure out how to make their organisations more responsive to the changes brought about by the pandemic.

1. Who led your firm during this extended crisis period? 

These are not necessarily the senior employees in your firm, but those key influencers with a reach that extends throughout your organisation. You may want to consider them for future leadership development. They are the people who bring others with them by demonstrating resilience, raising morale and showing commitment and adaptability. Which of your senior “leaders” let you down, failed to deliver consistently, or kept away from the fire? These are the people you need to move on.

2. How will you ‘de-layer’ your organisation? 

Adaptable companies are flat structured. Information moves freely, enabling fast decision-making and error correction. No matter what your organisation chart says, you are a hierarchical firm if you tolerate egotistical leaders. They are driven to avoid any change or action they perceive may diminish their status. To be a flat structured, agile organisation, only hire leaders with humility.

3. Does your organisation make good use of talent-on-demand solutions? 

The speed at which the shutters came down on the economy, as the pandemic took hold, meant many essential projects were shelved overnight. If these projects are still relevant to the business, get out of the blocks and have them delivered by hiring contractors. Additionally, bring in contractor support for operational HR or HR project delivery. Don’t wait until essential people services fail, creating down the line problems for your customers and other critical stakeholders.

4. What is the most creative move your firm has made during this crisis? 

For many leaders, struggling with current challenges makes contemplating the future version of their business almost impossible. That said, innovation is at the heart of adaptation. What has your firm learned to do more efficiently? What has changed for your clients and how is that impacting their needs now?

5. How has your workplace changed for the better? 

Learning needs to be fun and change set up as a challenge. Some of the more complex issues to be managed centre around formal and informal organisational design, particularly if you incorporate hybrid working. How will you create structure and effective operating practices for employees in the future? How will you replicate the essential social elements of your culture and maintain a high-productivity ethos? Engaging employees in addressing these difficult questions can elicit productive solutions.

Unlike previous global economic shocks, there are not many ready-made answers to these new challenges. Leaders who lean on their employees to work out how they can most effectively get from where they are now to where they want to be next, will have the greatest outcomes.

Paul O’Donnell is the CEO of HRM Search Partners.