Experiencing change fatigue? Get change management training

“Change is the only constant” has become a cliché. But cliches are overused because they’re true.

We humans are under constant pressure to adapt – to global events, new technologies, market shifts, self-care guidelines, weather patterns, a new election season, public health epidemics, regulatory changes … the list goes on.

It can feel like just as we make peace with one societal crisis, another arises. Just as we get the hang of a new process, the supply chain shifts. And just as we adapt to the latest software, a better version gets released.

Not to mention that organizations everywhere continue to undergo significant changes thanks (in part) to these never-ending environmental factors. We’re seeing layoffs, cost-cutting measures, strategic pivots, reorganizations, and disruptive innovations galore.

I don’t know about you, but I’m drained just thinking about it. And that’s exactly it: The relentless waves of change are exhausting. Corporate employees are treading the waves as best they can, but some days, even the most resilient organizations can find it hard to keep their heads above water. That’s called change fatigue.

What is change fatigue?

Change fatigue is a general sense of apathy or passivity towards organizational changes by individuals or teams, said to arise when too much change takes place. Change fatigue can result from (or be exacerbated by) simply existing on our ever-changing, anxiety-inducing planet. But also, in turbulent times or economic strife, organizations can encounter so much change in a short amount of time – from layoffs to another business pivot (again) — the result is your employees, productivity, and business outcomes can suffer. Let’s take a look.

Symptoms of change fatigue

Sometimes also known as organizational change fatigue, if your employees are suffering from these symptoms, you might be caught in a change fatigue cycle.

1. Emotional exhaustion and low employee morale

Constant change can lead to stress and anxiety among employees. (Like this 2024 Visier report found, where worn-out workers reported that change fatigue left them feeling anxious, burnt-out, and distrusting of their employers.)

2. Decreased engagement/productivity

Overwhelmed employees often become disengaged, less invested in their work, and less productive. After all, if you’re burnt out and emotionally overwhelmed, how can you concentrate on getting your work done?

3. Resistance to change

When employees feel frustrated and overwhelmed by change, they’re more likely to resist new initiatives in order to avoid rework, more work, loss of control, and unpredictable outcomes at all costs.

4. Higher turnover

Prolonged change fatigue can (unsurprisingly) lead to increased employee turnover as workers seek improved environments.

But here’s the thing. No matter what industry, organization, or executive board you work for – you cannot escape change. We live in a climate characterized by frequent and significant disruptions. That’s why it’s up to leaders everywhere to manage and mitigate change fatigue as best they can.

So, leaders: Do you have what it takes to lead a successful change effort? Are you equipped to help your employees handle a world rife with chaos? Can you spearhead a company transformation as the world evolves simultaneously? Many may try, but few will succeed. Let’s discuss why.

What happens when you don’t have change management training

Effective communication is at the heart of any successful change management communication strategy. But unfortunately, many organizations make matters worse with poor communication, or lack thereof. This is usually because their leadership lacks change management training, effective communication professionals, or both.

Let’s review five of the most common change communications pitfalls:

1. Ignoring emotion

I once had a boss who believed that emotions didn’t belong in the workplace. She stuck to the facts and never disclosed personal stories. But failing to consider the emotional impact of change on employees can lead to disaster. Change brings uncertainty and anxiety, and employees need to feel understood and supported by another human with feelings. It may be uncomfortable to address the emotional toll change takes in the workplace, but it would be negligent to ignore.

2. Losing focus of the audience

When it comes to effective change communications, empathy for the audience is everything. But sometimes, leaders get so caught up in the promise of change that they forget to think about what it means from the employees’ lens. If you’re a leader initiating change, you must remember that your employees are the ones who will make that change a reality.

So, although the potential outcome is exciting to you, your people may be experiencing the dread and anxiety that come along with putting in work to do something different. A great free tool to help you get started with this is our Audience Needs Map™.

3. Using the same messaging for every audience

We see many folks who try to take the easy way out by relying on the same messaging for every group of stakeholders. But your finance team has different concerns than your logistics team, which has different concerns than your marketing team. So, it’s in everyone’s best interest to segment your change management communication strategy relative to who this change affects. Until you customize your change communications to address different concerns and motivations, your employees won’t feel fully understood.

4. Minimal preparation

It’s been said that if you fail to prepare, you can prepare to fail. When it comes to communicating change or communicating during times of turbulence and disruption, you can’t just wing it – you need to prepare.

That doesn’t mean you need to be so polished and professional that you lack authenticity – but the more calm, collected, and confident you are, the more peace of mind your employees will receive. And that requires knowing your audience and your messaging, anticipating resistance, infusing personal stories, and acing your delivery. So before you address change in front of an audience, do everyone a favor and prepare.

5. Insufficient information

When you don’t provide sufficient information about the need for change, the impact of change, the landscape, or the action plan, your employees will be left feeling unsatisfied and confused instead of set up for success. Not to mention that oftentimes, rumors and misinformation spread, which further undermines trust and muddies organizational messaging. Employees need clear, honest, and timely information to feel confident in the change process to move the initiative forward productively. Make sure your change management communication strategy includes this, and again, this is something that a great change communication training will equip you with.

How companies can navigate change well: Change management best practices

If you need to introduce or address a change, you can avoid missteps and mitigate the impact of change fatigue by relying on a few proactive best practices, and enrolling your C-suite or communications team in change management training.

1. Create a change management communication strategy

Developing a comprehensive strategic plan with a clear vision and strategy will help you handle any change initiative. Having a strategy ensures that all perspectives are considered, and all scenarios planned for. This includes setting:

• Clear objectives;
• Timelines;
• And metrics for success.

Another major part of strategic planning involves communication planning. Leadership must craft internal (and sometimes external) messaging that conveys the reasons for change, addresses potential resistance, illustrates the benefits to the audience, and articulates the expected outcomes. Our change management training Illuminate™ was designed for executive leaders and corporate communications professionals alike to succeed in communicating change well, and often.

2. Embrace the communication journey

Change is a journey that unfolds in phases (or acts). Which is to say that your communication must occur in phases over time, too. You can’t just ask your employees to leap into the unknown and then leave them be. Your employees are embarking on a voyage into a new reality.

To get there, they’ll need to overcome obstacles, learn from failures, and persistently climb toward their goal. If they’re going to succeed, they’ll need a strong leader at the helm, providing consistent support and transparent updates.

3. Foster alignment

Ensure that leaders at all levels and across all verticals are committed to the change and have bought into your strategic change communications plan. For best results, enroll all your directors and above at your enterprise organization in Illuminate™, our change management training. That way, different teams and employees will feel reassured by consistent messaging from all leaders across the organization.

For large enterprise organizations, sometimes it’s good to reveal the change management plan in a tiered approach, allowing for feedback and “poking of holes” into the plan before it is unveiled to the entire company. That way when all employees are notified, your front-line management and above have already been briefed and brought on board.

4. Prioritize employee listening

The more you listen (really listen) to how employees are thinking and feeling about the environment and situation at hand, the more likely you are to communicate successfully – because you’ll come from a place of empathy and understanding. FYI: Active listening isn’t enough (but Adaptive Listening™ is).

Make sure you have systems or processes in place to capture the feedback and insights learned from all that listening! Anonymous feedback channels, polls, or surveys can add more color to your employee morale as you undergo and practice those better Adaptive Listening™ skills.

5. Provide training and support

Provide the necessary resources, training, and information to help employees adapt to change and see it as a force for good. Even when your organization is not being launched in a new direction, consider offering resources like counseling, wellness outlets, and resilience training to help employees cope with change in productive ways that prevent change fatigue.

Strategies for communicating change

Even with all these change management communication best practices in place, communicating change efforts and leading during times of change is still hard. Help ease the change burden that falls on employees by adopting the following employee-centric change communication strategies.

Communicate transparently

Open and honest communication is key. That means acknowledging the challenges and validating employees’ feelings of fatigue and fear. Open conversations, regular updates, and opportunities for feedback about challenges faced will build trust and rapport.

Tell stories

Driving (or responding to) transformation isn’t easy. Change is scary to most people! Many react by expressing discomfort, doubt, or outright resistance. To overcome fear and skepticism, people need to feel hopeful that the outcome will be positive for them even when the path ahead may be murky.

This is where authentic, emotion-fueled storytelling comes in. Stories help remove people their fear-based ideas. Stories inspire. Stories unify. Stories spur change. The most successful leaders are storytellers. What stories do you have to tell?

Focus on shared goals

When you’re transparent about where you’re going at a big-picture and granular level, it’s easy to rally around shared goals and the initiatives that will help you get there. This will ensure that you don’t upset your employees by adding new, seemingly disparate tasks to their plates, or confuse them by not giving enough information about the “why” or the “how”. When you communicate desired outcomes effectively and provide the resources and roadmap for how to get there, your teams will be prepared, supported, and fired up.

Involve employees

Whenever you can, engage different employees in your planning and decision-making processes so that you can use their experience to inform your change management strategy and make them feel heard.

Enroll in change management training

Your executive leadership is usually the frequent communicator of change. Enroll them all in time-tested and proven change management training, like Illuminate™. And if you have internal communications team or even a marketing team involved in a big change effort (product launch, anyone?) make sure they are all experts in not just executing on your change management effort well, but can communicate that change effectively also.

The role of change management training

Change management training equips individuals and teams with the skills and knowledge needed to lead and/or respond to change. Whether you’re an executive leader responsible for driving change in your organization or an internal communications professional tasked with communicating change to the public, proper training is essential.

There are plenty of change management certifications and programs available online. But we argue that the secret to a successful change management plan is the communication of the plan. And there is only one change management communications workshop rooted in The Duarte Method™.

How Duarte helps companies communicate change, well

Duarte helps people and organizations worldwide communicate with greater impact and influence. We’re specialists in the spoken word — the most powerful medium for moving people to believe something new. Since 1988, we have dedicated ourselves to mastering this specialized craft.

Whether we’re shaping movements, epic mainstage moments, or everyday conversations, The Duarte Method™ places empathy, story, and design at the core of communication. It’s the method we’ve used for decades with the highest-performing brands in the world. And it’s the method that will equip you to communicate in a way that sparks and sustains change.

Our change management training, Illuminate™, is designed to help leaders and communications professionals:

• Inspire their teams with a clear and compelling vision
• Communicate change with empathy and clarity
• Foster a culture of engagement and openness

Participants walk away with the ability to:

• Recognize the importance of story and its use in a successful change effort
• Explain the communication needs of audiences at each stage of a change journey
• Examine the unique factors of stories, speeches, ceremonies, and symbols and outline where they can advance your change initiative
• Analyze the communication needs of an audience and categorize critical stakeholders
• Generate and refine a change communication plan by audience segment
• Mine and formulate stories that can be applied across a variety of change journeys

And participants of the Illuminate workshop report significant improvements in their ability to drive and manage change.

Change is inevitable, but with the right mindset, change communication strategies, and resources, it can be a catalyst for growth. Change management training is a crucial investment for any organization looking to navigate internal transitions and thrive through inevitable global change.

At Duarte, we’ve navigated the complexities of change using communication and storytelling strategies for more than 30 years and specialize in helping other organizations do the same. So, if you need help developing a communication plan for your next change journey, give us a call.