Managing Employee Resistance to Change

Countless studies over the years have shown that significant organizational change success is elusive, difficult to achieve, and hard to sustain over the long term—and it’s getting even harder because employees feel they’ve have had too much in recent times.

But long before that, research by organizations such as McKinsey and Gartner highlighted that change success is the exception, not the rule.

Less than one-third of respondents to a 2021 global survey by McKinsey—all of whom had been part of a transformation in the previous five years—said their companies’ transformations “had been successful at both improving organizational performance and sustaining those improvements over time.”

Since that research was published, successful change has become even more difficult because of increasing employee resistance due to change fatigue. According to a 2023 Gartner report: “the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes in the past 12 months alone, and they are getting fatigued. Willingness to support organizational change collapsed from 74% of employees in 2016 to just 43% in 2022.”

Of course, resistance or reluctance to change is nothing new, it’s just more pronounced due to employee change fatigue. As humans, many of us have a natural bias against change, as the leading organizational change expert—Professor John. P. Kotter—highlighted in a recent MIT Sloan Review article he co-authored: Strengthen Your Change Muscle for Competitve Advantage.

Professor Kotter—whose book Leading Change was described by Time Magazine as one of the most influential business management books ever written—is generally, but wrongly, cited as the source of the often-referenced statistic: 70% of change projects fail, usually linked to his now legendary Leading Change preview article in Harvard Business Review.

As Oxford University lecturer and editor of the Oxford Review, David Wilkinson has pointed out, Professor Kotter never made that claim. While there are lots of authoritative studies to prove that change success is elusive, and that only one in three, or one in four, are successful over time, it would be quite a stretch to claim that the remainder are total failures. There are, after all, degrees of success—and communication makes all the difference. McKinsey research shows that good communication has an even greater effect at enterprise-wide transformations, where company-wide change efforts are 12.4 times more likely to be successful when senior managers communicate continually.

As for that “70% of change projects fail” line, when Poppulo asked Professor Kotter how he felt about it being wrongly attributed to him over so many years, he said: "Yes, it’s annoying, but 'c'est la vie."

Since that HBR article was published way back in 1995 the chairman of Kotter International Inc., has consolidated a formidable reputation as one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership and change. So, unsurprisingly, he has a keen understanding not only of the pressing need for organizations to be able to rapidly adapt to change needs, but also why employees can be resistant to change: “Our biology and evolutionary history... bias us toward the status quo and stability,” he has said.

A bias towards the status quo and stability inherently implies resistance to change, even if that change might ultimately be positive for employees. After all, humans are emotional beings hardwired for stability, and change tripwires emotions.

Resistance to Change Definition and Examples

At its most basic it’s the reluctance or opposition to adopting new ways of working, processes, or structures in an organization and it's a natural human response to uncertainty and disruption of the status quo.

It can manifest itself in several ways, some very openly, others not so. For example, some employees might openly oppose the change through arguments or refusal to comply, while others might adopt a more passive resistance approach that can include decreased productivity, increased errors, or missed deadlines.

Others might adopt a "wait-and-see" approach, delaying tasks or avoiding involvement, and some might express their discontent through rumors or gossip, undermining the change initiative. No matter what shape resistance to change takes, it can seriously undermine a company’s ability to implement the change it needs to achieve its goals.

Reasons for Resistance to Change in an Organization and How to Deal with Them

• When we think of resistance to change, it brings to mind questions like:
• What are the top causes of resistance to change?
• What are the best strategies to manage employee resistance in change management?
• How do you deal with an employee or employees who are resistant to change?
• How can emotional and psychological needs be addressed in change management?
• How can communication issues be addressed in change programs?

All good and valid questions, but first before you can address or manage employee resistance to change, you’ve got to understand it.

Understanding the Roots of Employee Resistance to Change

There are several factors that feed into employee resistance to change, but, as we've seen earlier, one in particular plays an outsized role in whether a change plan succeeds or fails: communication. Leaving aside change initiatives for a moment, how an organization communicates with its people—and that means listening to and involving people, not just pushing out information—is absolutely central to its culture.

And as we know, culture not only eats strategy for breakfast, if it’s bad it’ll eat your company.

Mistrust and its Impact on Change

Poor company culture is a surefire recipe for lack of trust in an organization’s leadership. Mistrust makes meaningful change difficult if not impossible, and at the very least can significantly derail change programs.

This mistrust can stem from past experiences where changes did not go as promised or where leaders failed to communicate effectively. If employees do not trust the leaders or the motives behind the change, they are more likely to resist.

Ultimately, mistrust erodes morale, productivity, and the overall success of any change initiative. Conversely, as OMT Global put it so well, “in times of organizational change, trust changes everything.”

So, building trust is crucial for overcoming resistance—but there’s no simple fix if the wider culture problem isn’t recognized or accepted by the leadership as being a problem, and then tackled and solved. And open, transparent, two-way communication—where employee views are listened to and respected—is the foundational building block for building trust. Without it, you’re not going to bring your people with you.

The Fear of the Unknown

According to the change management organization Prosci, fear of the unknown is one of the top reasons for employee resistance to change:

“Fear is a significant cause of resistance among employees, especially fears about job loss and lower compensation. Uncertainty about their own future and the future of the organization arises due to past experience with failed changes.

"Employees grow insecure about their ability to perform well with new technology, fear changes to organizational culture, and fear the possibility of increased evaluation and monitoring. Employees with longer tenures fear change more than newer employees because of the depth of their comfort with the old ways of doing things,” according to Prosci, who also highlighted changes to an employee's role as a lightning rod for resistance.

Emotional Responses to Change Initiatives

Fear of the unknown is not the only emotional response that can impact change initiatives. As mentioned above, employees are emotional human beings with a bias towards the status quo and stability rather than for change, and being impacted with change in their company can trigger emotional reactions that can affect the planned changes.

In addition to fear of the unknown, emotional responses can range from potential loss of control to fear of failure in adapting to new roles or processes. Some people might also feel a sense of loss or even grief, especially if the change involves restructuring or layoffs, impacting their security and colleague relationships. These are very significant issues in a person’s life and organizations ignore them at their peril when they want to implement change.

Change Fatigue and Employee Resistance to Demands for More Change

The COVID-19 pandemic might be largely in the rearview mirror, but it has left a lasting impact on everything we do in the workplace. According to Rachel Brownlee, Human Resources Manager at International Feed Corporation, “the pandemic has been a catalyst for so much change in the workplace and the expectations of the workforce”. And change expert Joss Mathieson has observed:

“The coronavirus pandemic amplified and accelerated change, magnifying a pre-existing need for most organizations to transform and injecting real urgency... the pace of change we are seeing is breathtaking.”

So much so that Gartner reported that employees are “getting tired of change”, manifesting in a collapse in willingness to support organizational change from 74% of employees in 2016 to just 43% in 2022.

Poor Communication as a Barrier

As highlighted above, for change programs to succeed, communication is essential at every step, especially in convincing employees about the need for change and getting their buy-in. In his seminal work on Leading Change, Harvard Professor John P, Kotter highlighted the critical importance of communication when said one of the top errors of executives was “under communicating the (change) vision by a factor of 10.”

“Transformation is impossible unless hundreds, or thousands of people are willing to help, often to the point of making short-term sacrifices. Employees will not make sacrifices, even if they are unhappy with the status quo, unless they believe that useful change is possible. Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the hearts and minds of the troops are never captured,” said Professor Kotter.

Failure to communicate change properly results in lack of awareness for employees, the No.1 cause of resistance to change, according to Prosci:

Strategies for Overcoming Resistance

Foster Clear and Transparent Communication

We’ve seen that failure to communicate change properly, providing context to why it’s needed, and what it means for people—the “what’s in it for me?”—is the top reason for resistance to change, so it must be the top priority for leaders seeking to bring their people with them on a change journey.

Leaders should prioritize consistent and open dialogue, regularly updating employees on progress, addressing concerns promptly, and ensuring that messaging is aligned across all channels and levels of leadership. Because trust is critical to preventing or at least dialing down resistance, two-way communication is essential so that employees feel they have a stake in the process, their voices are heard, and they can give feedback.

For communication to be effective, Internal Communication teams must be involved at the earliest stages of the change planning process as they are not only the eyes and ears of the organization but the critical link between management and employees.

As Helen Cunningham, the Head of Global Change and Communication at Amadeus, points out in Getting Change Right During Constant Transformation, comms teams are often in a better position to know, for example, of other change programs that might be in play already, and know that insisting on further change at a point in time could fuel resistance.

Actively Engage Employees in the Change Process

The days of telling employees “We need to change how we do things around here, so you’ve got to this, this and this...” are long gone. Smart organizations know that the best way to give change the best chance of success is to actively engage their employees in the change process.

McKensie research highlights the fact that making an organizational transformation’s goals tangible for all employees takes more than just one-way communication. “We see from the survey that the most successful organizations are more likely to involve employees and engage them in face-to-face communication: specifically, using line-manager briefings, leadership town halls, and a cascade of information throughout the business.”

There are numerous examples of companies successfully transforming through actively engaging employees, but just to focus on two: Microsoft and Netflix.

Microsoft: When Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, he prioritized company culture and listening to employees— actively involving them in the change process through open dialogue and a clear articulation of the company’s new direction.

Netflix: One of the most famous and celebrated business transformations in business, from being a DVD rental company to the world’s largest entertainment streaming service organization, was achieved with employee involvement at its core, set out in the now renowned Netflix Culture Deck.

Provide Continuous Education and Training

This should be self-evident: continuous change requires that employees are given the opportunity to continuously re-educate themselves as the skillsets for their roles evolve, or to learn a new skill for a new role.

6 Practical Tips for Implementing Successful Change

1. Involve employees early and often. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Provide frequent updates, particularly in the early days.

2. When you’re formulating an open and transparent communication plan, you should at the same time identify “employee influencers”, those key people likely to support or hinder the plan. Negative influencers should be sought out early so that they feel their views are important and they’re not being blindsided.

3. To answer that question, “How do you deal with an employee or employees who are resistant to change?”—it’s best to:

— conduct one-on-one meetings to get an understanding of why they are resistant or reluctant

— listen with empathy to their concerns

— clarify the reasons for the change

— clear up any misconceptions or misinformation

— discuss any concerns about how the change could affect them

— promise to continue with the dialogue and to keep them informed if you don’t have specific answers at this time

4. Provide training and support. Offer in-person or online training sessions, workshops, and resources to help employees adapt to new systems, processes, or responsibilities. Ensure support is available throughout the transition.

5. Make leadership support visible. If the troops don’t see that their leaders are bought-in to the change, they’re not likely to be buy-in themselves. Get the leaders out there, talking and listening to people where they are—it’s essential to building trust and support for what employees are being asked to do.

6. Finally, measure progress, celebrate successes and learn from mistakes.