Assessment of Organisational Resilience Management During the Post-COVID Business Recovery in Lagos State

The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted Nigerian business operations, and understanding how organisations managed resilience during post-pandemic recovery in Lagos State, South West Nigeria, provides professional lessons for future crisis management. This study assessed organisational resilience management strategies and their effectiveness in sustaining business recovery among 40 large organisations in Lagos during the 2021 to 2023 post-COVID recovery period. Resilience dimensions assessed included adaptive capacity, resource flexibility, supply chain robustness, workforce agility, and leadership response quality. Recovery performance was measured by revenue recovery index (ratio of 2022 to 2019 revenue), employee retention rate, and innovation activity rate during recovery. Data were collected through structured questionnaires administered to CEOs, COOs, and HR directors (n = 80). Regression analysis and qualitative benchmarking were employed. Results showed that workforce agility (beta = 0.48, p < 0.001) and supply chain diversification (beta = 0.43, p < 0.001) were the strongest predictors of recovery performance. Organisations that had formalised business continuity plans before the pandemic achieved 34% higher revenue recovery indices. Digital readiness pre-pandemic was the strongest predictor of overall resilience (r = 0.72, p < 0.001). Only 28% of sampled organisations had a formal crisis management committee at the onset of COVID-19. The study concludes that pre-crisis resilience infrastructure, particularly digital readiness and business continuity planning, is the most decisive factor in post-crisis recovery performance for Lagos State large organisations. Keywords: organisational resilience, post-COVID recovery, business continuity, Lagos State, crisis management