Insight

New research shows the hidden competitive risk for businesses: The Resilience Gap

26th March 2026

Employees across the UK recognise the importance of business planning for disruption but have little confidence that their workplace is prepared for the challenges which price shocks, inflation, tariffs and other instabilities present.

This Resilience Gap is explored in a new report from Lodestone Communications and VP Comms. Resilience Redefined, launched on the 26th March 2026 at the RSA in London, and interviewed business leaders across multiple sectors, as well as polling 1,234 employees at businesses across the country to understand their concerns about current and future threats such as economic shocks, supply chain issues, climate-related disruption and AI adoption. To find out more about how your organisation can become more resilient, improve foresight on risks and opportunities and improve internal communications.

Of the employees surveyed:

• Over 80% recognised that it is very or quite important for their organisation to invest in long-term planning and resilience.
• However, fewer than 1 in 5 felt that their organisation was doing enough to build resilience for external risks from a range of sources.
• Only half of employees knew whether their organisation had any sort of long-term strategic plan in place, with the majority of those which do exist covering five years or less into the future.
• Almost 80% felt their organisation needed to do more to communicate its long-term strategy.

In the face of such a Resilience Gap, we interviewed a number of ‘New Era leaders’, executives leading the way on resilience, including Harriet Lamb, CEO of the Green Party, Peter Williamson, Policy Director of Automate UK and Emma Wright, Partner at Crowell & Moring LLP to discuss best practice in the face of these challenges, including communicating existing plans to employees on a regular basis.

The report takes a deep dive into their recommendations of how to bridge the Resilience Gap, highlighting the importance not just of a deep strategic vision, built on an expansive definition of resilience, incorporating not just financial and cyber, but people and climate. Those interviewed also highlighted the importance of horizon scanning the political, regulatory and policy risks and opportunities, and of building proactive anticipation into the DNA of your business.

The expert interviews also demonstrated the importance of developing a culture underpinned by human and emotional intelligence, to help address the gap between perception and action, with the aim of creating a world where, as Peter Stojanovic, editor of HotTopics, suggests in the report, “Resilience doesn’t mean fewer surprises. It means fewer people are shocked.

Victoria Page, founder of VP Comms and co-author of the report said: “As a sustainability leader, I’ve seen how the most forward-thinking organisations are those that understand resilience not just as a response to a crisis, but as a proactive, cultural foundation. It means being honest about not having all the answers and being brave enough to ask the right questions to decide how and where to move next.”

Fran O’Leary, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Lodestone Communications and co-author of the report, said: “As we progressed with our research, it became clear that there is now a stark Resilience Gap: the distance between how some organisations are approaching and communicating their long-term planning and resilience strategies, and how employees wish they were doing so.”

“However, we also saw a new generation of leaders’ commitment to leading with purpose, bringing their teams along with them, and tackling challenges in an innovative and collaborative way, which should inspire us all.”

“The thing that still surprises me after 20 years of working with business leaders and was confirmed in the report is this: organisations invest enormous energy building strategies for resilience, and almost none communicating them. Our research found that eight in ten employees want to hear more about their organisation’s long-term plans, yet only one in five believe their organisation is truly ready for what’s coming. That gap isn’t a strategy problem. It’s a communication and culture problem. The most resilient organisations I’ve worked with go beyond the plan, making sure their people understand it, believe in it, and feel part of it. Resilience without that human connection is just a document on a shelf. Communication is the engine of a good resilience strategy.”

Harriet Lamb, CEO of the Green Party and keynote speaker at the Resilience Redefined launch event, said: “At a time when the certainties of the past decades have gone, it’s right that resilience is the word of the moment. Today’s report shows that resilience has evolved into a sophisticated analysis, one that demands a reimagining of business models to ensure long-term viability. It’s not just about being tough and being able to bounce back but also changing the whole way you’re running your company so you’re there for the long term and that you can adapt.”