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Phase 2 Readiness Starts in the Boardroom
Why Phase 2 requires boards and leadership teams to think differently about organisational readiness.
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From 30 November 2026, the significantly extended list of hazards covered by Awaab's Law Phase 2's statutory response timelines means that compliance will draw on resources across the whole organisation, not just the repairs function, as it did with damp and mould in Phase 1. Getting ready for Phase 2 was never going to be a "Phase 1 with more compliance" exercise. Quite the opposite: providers need to consider what has to change across the organisation, now that multiple departments may be handling repair requests. And effective change management always starts at the top.
Without a clear, mandated and funded priority from the board, the changes required to deal with Awaab's Law Phase 2 are unlikely to become a genuine organisational priority, no matter how much buy-in they have further down. Unless the work carries an allocated budget and a named executive sponsor, it competes against everything else the organisation is already doing, and it loses out. Strategy filters from the top down. If it is not set clearly at board level, the organisation will not execute on it, because every organisation is already juggling more requirements than it can comfortably deliver.
The research bears this out: Prosci's studies of organisational change have identified active, visible executive sponsorship as the single greatest contributor to success in every study since 1998, most recently by a margin of three to one. Little of this scale succeeds without being driven from the top.
However, organisation-wide change will not succeed if the actions required are simply added to an ever-growing list of company-wide priorities. Creating headroom means deciding, specifically, what can stop or be deprioritised. It also requires an honest assessment of Phase 1 performance, because without that there is little basis for knowing where improvement is needed.
The same discipline applies to procurement. Phase 2 will require access to specialist contractors that some providers may not currently use, and demand for certain skills is likely to increase. Those relationships are better established before the caseload arrives than once statutory timelines are already running.
Strategy must also move the organisation from intent to evidence. Being able to demonstrate that the right decision was made, rather than simply showing that the right outcome was intended, requires evidence to be built into day-to-day processes across the organisation. That means giving teams the processes, systems and resources needed to work with an evidence-focused mindset.
Change does not happen simply because an organisation supports the objective. It needs a defined plan, clear ownership and decisions about where limited capacity will be directed. Without that strategic discipline, Phase 2 risks becoming another requirement added to an already overloaded operating model.
Strategy is the first element in the McKinsey 7S Framework for organisational change, which we use throughout our Roadmap to Readiness to examine Phase 2 preparedness. The guide looks more closely at board-level priority and executive ownership, creating capacity through deliberate strategic choices, the role of procurement, and the shift from organisational intent to evidenced outcomes.
