How Leaders Can Move Past Change Fatigue and Better Support Their Teams
Woman working from home with dog beside her
From restructurings and AI adoption to evolving work models, organizations are in a near-constant state of change. Leaders are often considering how to strategically manage resistance to change, but what about the employee exhaustion resulting from it? When transformation is constant or explained, people often stop engaging long before they stop showing up.
In Gallagher’s 2025 Employee Communications Report, change fatigue was ranked among the top five barriers to organizational success for the first time ever. In practice, this shows up as employees feeling overwhelmed and trust becoming harder to maintain. Proactively recognizing this is critical, and it’s something I see firsthand in my day-to-day work with leaders who are navigating multiple initiatives at once, while employees are unsure which change matters most. Meanwhile, the communications team is caught in the middle, trying to translate jargon into plain language, and quietly wondering which version will be obsolete by tomorrow morning.
Here’s how change fatigue actually shows up inside organizations and what leaders and teams can do to communicate with more care and clarity.
What change fatigue looks like in organizations
Change fatigue is the sense of apathy and disengagement that a person or a team experiences when they’re faced with overwhelming, continuous change without adequate time or support to acclimate to it. When change initiatives exceed people’s capacity to absorb them, performance and morale tend to suffer.
In change initiatives I led or supported during the pandemic, this typically looked like an overall numbness to all things organization-related. Observing shrugging shoulders on a Zoom call upon hearing about another major pivot. Townhall surveys report less engagement or higher complaints. A slack status that is literally just a dumpster fire emoji.
Common causes of change fatigue
When workplace change begins to feel like overload rather than progress, this is often driven by a combination of the following factors:
Too many changes happening too quickly: Multiple initiatives overlapping or competing for attention and support.
Lack of clarity in communication: Unclear goals or inconsistent messaging increase confusion and anxiety.
Inadequate preparation and support: Employees lack the training, tools, or time needed to adapt successfully.
Low trust in leadership: Poorly timed or inconsistent communication erodes confidence and fuels skepticism.
Strategies to overcome change fatigue
Leaders and managers play a vital role in helping prevent and overcome change fatigue in organizations. Overcoming change fatigue starts with an intentional, human-centered approach to disseminating information. Recent insights from SAP indicated that while a lot of organizations focus on getting communications and training resources out to impacted teams, the make-or-break is often in how these are delivered and who is delivering them.
Deliver clear and transparent messaging
In an end-of-year piece intended to spotlight 2026 communications trends, Forbes indicated that clarity should supersede overcommunication to reduce uncertainty and cognitive load this year. This means that before, during, and after a change initiative, people leaders should be equipped to explain:
Why the change is happening
How this will impact individuals and teams
What support is available during the change
By voicing clear priorities, articulating purpose, and reinforcing actions to be taken, leaders who treat communication as a strategic function tend to help teams adapt faster and perform more effectively.
Tailored training for different learning styles
While my clients are across all different sectors and spaces, one thing I notice consistently in every project is the need and request for varied learning. Often, this looks like a hybrid strategy involving virtual and in-person training, with step-by-step documents for those who prefer reading, to the visual learners who prefer bite-sized video learning and demos.
While it may feel like a lot of work (that’s what I’m here for, wink, wink), establishing change champions across departments and functions can go a very long way in responding to employee needs. This could look like involving the HR team for questions and anxieties during a company acquisition, or establishing a long-time employee as a respected voice to advocate and amplify messaging, streamline questions, and listen with empathy.
Establish two-way channels and proper feedback
Communicating with employees shouldn’t be a broadcast; there should be multiple channels and dialogue to flow from multiple directions. Creating feedback mechanisms that allow employees to ask questions, raise concerns, and act as early‑warning systems for misunderstandings allows leaders to respond before challenges escalate.
Years ago, I supported a digital transformation project where the CTO assumed employees were overreacting to a new software rollout meant to support them. When I joined, I quickly set up feedback loops across the organization and discovered that the resistance wasn’t coming from day-to-day users at all—it was the IT team, who hadn’t been consulted or given the chance to provide operational input and were majorly inconvenienced by this change. I was surprised by how quickly a single overlooked perspective had shaped the perception of the entire company, and once I flagged it, leadership was able to address the root cause before it spread further. This also shows the importance of bringing change management experts in earlier, rather than later. In the end, a few of the IT experts were designated as change champions to answer questions and support the software transition in the day-to-day elements.
Manage changes confidently
Navigating change doesn’t have to come at the expense of people. With the right communication strategy and change management approach, organizations can reduce change fatigue and move forward more effectively.
Book in to chat with Strand + Strategy Communications to build a clear, human‑focused approach to change. Time to get started on change management that truly supports your team.
