How to manage an effective return to the office

After a year of working from home, many companies have now begun the gradual process of re-opening their offices. Today, 53% of desk-based office workers in the UK are now travelling to their place of employment at least once a week, with a full return expected by late June.

This drastic spike in employees heading back into the office means businesses are now attempting to emerge from a protracted crisis mode and must begin planning how to successfully navigate within a post-pandemic world. For many, this is difficult to do as tomorrow’s difficulties are hard to predict, and businesses are having to adapt to change and challenges faster than ever before.

In order to effectively manage this period of uncertainty, many businesses of today will need to reassess their approaches to leadership, strategic thinking and risk management. Implementing a VUCA model can help assist businesses to navigate the ambiguous path ahead successfully, whilst also managing the short-term and long-term effects of COVID-19.

First used by military planners, the VUCA acronym represents an ever-changing, unfamiliar and unpredictable environment, such as COVID-19. It is also a practical code for the set of challenges and difficulties that we face and must overcome when managing in an ambiguous world.

Justin Small, Founder of Future Strategy Club, discusses the importance of implementing a VUCA leadership model for an effective return to the office:

“Businesses and business leaders have never before managed such a significant event as COVID-19. And the pandemic has driven a range of unexpected and unbelievable changes in every aspect of a business. COVID-19 is an extreme example of the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world in which many businesses are struggling to operate. It is a world in constant flux, where ambiguity and complexity are guaranteed.

These new and ever-changing circumstances demonstrate that today’s business world is more volatile, unpredictable and uncertain than it ever has been. This means for many businesses that re-designing their leadership models is more essential now than it ever has been before, with the pandemic completely re-defining the workplace. Implementing a VUCA leadership model creates both short-term and long-term business success as companies can effectively cope with the varying challenges that today, or tomorrow, will bring. Successful leaders can use VUCA leadership models to build their strategies, reset their workforce regulations and innovate their company policies.

At Future Strategy Club, we work with a body of experienced transformation and restructuring experts who now have circa 15 years’ worth of skills to tap in to, having weathered the 2008 crisis and now COVID-19. These experts have helped businesses through extreme periods of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity by providing expert guidance and re-designing their leadership models. At the moment, this support is becoming the difference between many business’s success or demise. ”