As business leaders mark the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns, they take stock of the post-pandemic impact on people, risk and capital. Boards and senior management teams continue to pursue growth while managing risks and opportunities as they navigate a still increasingly complex world.
Here’s how predictions made about the post-pandemic business world are tracking:
Risk remains top of mind – tracking. Effective leaders acknowledge risk has become a mainstream element of business decisions and will remain so. WTW’s recent Emerging Risks Survey suggests the complex risk landscape is not slowing down.
The frequency and simultaneous occurrence of high-impact risks require managing an interconnected “portfolio” of risks at the enterprise level (e.g., climate, geopolitics, health, financial, supply chain, talent shortages, human capital, cyber, war). These risks have continued to increase and proliferate, necessitating a culture of adaptability to incorporate new information that arrives daily or hourly, and requiring leaders to act decisively when events occur.
The role of the chief risk officer continues to increase in prominence at the board and senior management level, working to create flexibility and reduce risk across the organization.
Remote and hybrid work models will stabilize and normalize – varies. Effective leaders understand that remote and hybrid working arrangements are not a product of the COVID era, but that COVID changed the landscape.
According to WTW research, prior to the pandemic about 350 million people worked remotely around the world, representing approximately 10% of the global workforce. During the pandemic, the number surged to approximately half to two-thirds of the global workforce, depending on region. At the time, leaders expected that most (but not all) workers would return to workplaces following the pandemic, with approximately one-third of the global workforce remaining remote.
While definitions of remote, hybrid and onsite work vary, recent WTW research reports that 31% of employees are onsite 80% of the time, 19% are remote 80% of the time and 50% are hybrid (a mix of onsite and remote). More than two-thirds of companies around the world have implemented a formal policy requiring employees to be in the office for a minimum number of days each week, with less than 5% of organizations completely prohibiting remote work. Most companies require employees to be onsite between one and four days per week, with three days being most prevalent.
Effective leaders consider multiple factors as they make remote, hybrid and in-person arrangements work in their organizations.
The Great Resignation will give way to permanent talent shortages in some areas – tracking, generally. Effective leaders emphasize talent strategies that involve creating places people want to be regardless of circumstance. As leaders emerged from the pandemic, most believed that the Great Resignation would end and labor markets would eventually stabilize.
Labor markets are indeed more stable than they have been over the past five years, with quit rates, labor participation, unemployment and job openings recovering in many countries to where they likely would've been without a pandemic. Nevertheless, permanent demographic shifts, including a baby bust, have created long-term talent shortages for certain jobs, skills and geographies that could persist for years.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability will become mainstream – varies considerably by country. Effective leaders understand ideological polarization changed the direction of ESG following the pandemic and was directly impacted by the new U.S. administration’s policy changes this year.
Many corporate stakeholders shifted course on ESG topics related to climate, and diversity, equity and inclusion, with some corporate boards and management teams doubling down and continuing efforts, some reducing emphasis on ESG and instead focusing on specific elements directly applicable to their industries and businesses, and some eliminating focus on ESG.
Effective leaders learn the facts and circumstances for each jurisdiction and set of stakeholders, reduce ideological rhetoric and focus on the relevance and impact of actions on business performance and risk.
Employee wellbeing and organization resilience will create competitive advantage – tracking. During the pandemic, effective leaders learned to promote employee wellbeing – connecting the support of healthy, resilient employees to healthy, resilient organizations. Their focus continued after the pandemic through an expansive view of resilience, connecting its financial, operational and workforce dimensions.
WTW’s 2024 Global Directors and Officers Survey Report identified health and safety as the top risk category across more than 50 countries. WTW research also demonstrated the positive impact of employee wellbeing on retention of key talent, employee productivity and financial performance.
Technological renaissance will occur – tracking. Effective leaders learned during the COVID crisis that most pandemics throughout history were followed by technological renaissance (for example, innovations in labor-saving tools and processes after the bubonic plague, assembly-line manufacturing after the “Spanish Flu” and space and computer technology following Influenza A).
Following the COVID pandemic, leaders experienced dramatic acceleration in development and adoption of technologies such as generative AI, the metaverse, spatial computing and quantum computing. Effective leaders understand that these technologies require new skills and deeper knowledge of their applications. They are using more dynamic governance models, leveraging the potential of new technologies while protecting the organization.
Effective leadership reflects on companies’ trajectories since the pandemic, taking actions to position their companies for success despite not knowing what the future might bring.
A version of this article originally appeared on Forbes on March 12, 2025.
