The next steps you take for your business will be some of the most important in its history. COVID-19 made businesses rip up the rulebook, defy expectations and look to the future. While the end of the pandemic appears to be in sight, because learning to live with the pandemic is going to become a part of everyday life, we are at a turning point for business recovery, long-term adaptation and people considering lifestyle and employment changes.

Of course, a business should be centred around your people and inclusion should be at the core of recovery. The pandemic made people reconsider what matters most in life: whether that was spending time with friends and family, seeking a better work/life balance, focusing on career goals and ambitions or working for a company with an aligned sense of purpose.

The next steps your business takes needs to have people at the heart so you can retain talent, inspire innovation, and nurture inclusion. To grasp this pivotal moment, to improve with both hands, there are four principles that can act as a starting point for inclusive business recovery.

1.   Prioritise your people
Businesses are people-powered, and the most successful leaders are the ones who truly understand that. While profits and products are also required to keep a business afloat, it’s an engaged and innovative team that propels it forward.

Now, it’s easy to say you’re a people-first company. After all, who wants to admit the alternative? But sometimes (no matter your intentions) policies, processes and behaviours evolve to only prioritise success for certain people.

While it can be tempting to implement blanket changes to enable business recovery, every individual is different – and failure to keep this in mind could mean you risk alienating certain groups. Instead of using a select number of voices to inform plans, think about engaging all your employees and on an individual basis.

2.   Listen to your workforce
Of course, considering your people is only the first step. Are you actually taking what they say on board? Some organisations aren’t having conversations about what their future working model looks like.  They’re just deciding it. Assuming that a one-size-fits-all plan will work for everyone is a quick way to exclude people. For example, socio-economic factors play an enormous role in whether people can or can’t work from home, exacerbated by the rising cost of energy. So, if you are implementing a work from home only policy, how are you going to make it work so that is it affordable for everyone and does not place an undue burden on anyone?

Employees who feel comfortable to raise issues such as affordability, the impact of isolation, where they live alone, will feel more appreciated by their workplace, but they must see action after the words. Reassure your team that their needs are understood and are being prioritised and incorporated in your move forward action plan.

3.   Consider hybrid as an option – not a silver bullet
Hybrid working has been touted by many as the all-round solution to workplace issues since the dawn of the pandemic, but businesses cannot think this way. In fact, hybrid is still yet to be a proven model by organisations and businesses should view it as such. They should recognise that it’s a mouldable framework that might need to be adjusted to reflect individual circumstances, of both your employees, your customers and your clients.

Once you understand what employees need from you to make hybrid a success – and equally, how you need to run the business to ensure client satisfaction and operational efficiency are optimised – then you can tweak and improve your hybrid model accordingly.

Remember that hybrid working isn’t a silver bullet. Whether it’s people whose jobs can’t be carried out from home or graduates and apprentices who need hands-on guidance to develop and grow, as you plan your future model of working, inclusion and flexibility remain critical cornerstones.

4.   Strive for better – even when things are good
While the business world is full of targets and in-sight performance markers, creating an inclusive workplace should not be a race to the finishing line. If we’ve learnt anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that things are incredibly unpredictable and, to be prepared, we must be agile, able to pivot and adapt to the unknown. We must however never lose sight of the bigger picture. If we are truly to create a world where inclusion and equity are the automatic gift for all, then real change must be both systemic, sustained and normalised. For that to happen, people in your business, especially your leaders and influencers but not them alone, need to adopt the right behaviours within a framework of clear accountability.

Although it can be daunting to not be sure of your end destination when you set out on your journey, take pride in a decision to start a path of recovery with inclusion at its heart.