3 Tips to Help Business Leaders Fight Change Fatigue

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What changes can my employees handle before they experience change fatigue or, worse, burnout?
Header illustration showing a woman presenting a board with marked dots and an icon of a man with steam coming out of his head
According to research by Kotter International, up to 70% of organizational changes fail. And when change efforts fail, the problem isn’t change-resistant employees, it’s ineffective change management.

Often, business leaders fail to take into account the various changes occurring simultaneously within their organization and mistakenly believe that their change efforts are the only event affecting employees.

When faced with multiple changes, employees can quickly become overwhelmed. This creates change fatigue, which leads to decreased productivity, increased errors, burnout, and even turnover.

In this article, we offer three tips to help you combat components of a job seekers database change fatigue and increase the likelihood that your change efforts will be successful.

We've also summarized these tips in a downloadable infographic here . Be sure to grab a copy!

What is a change initiative?
Change initiative is a broad term that covers a range of activities, including:

Updating processes or protocols
Using a new tool
Introducing new leadership
Change of strategy (at team, department or business level)
Moving objects
Reorganization of departments
Adding new members to the team
Changes can range from small modifications to full-scale business transformation efforts. However, the extent to which employees are exposed to change depends on many factors: the speed of change, the size and severity of the change, and the number of simultaneous changes occurring in the organization.

3 Tips to Fight Change Fatigue
1. Don't underestimate the bandwidth required to make changes.
The challenge: Balancing change efforts with “business as usual” responsibilities and expecting employees to work at their normal pace while learning new procedures.
This leads to change fatigue, which leads to stress, decreased productivity and increased errors.

Research shows that people have a maximum of three hours of peak cognitive activity per day. This is the time when they are most productive, concentrating on and completing the tasks and responsibilities associated with their roles.

When people experience change, especially changes in learned patterns and behaviors (i.e., how they work), it disrupts their cognitive abilities.

"Dealing with change consumes the already limited bandwidth that people can devote to their work... This load is finite, and when the limit is reached, the result is change fatigue."

Eliza Olding, research vice president at Gartner

( Source ; full report available to Gartner clients)

Solution: Aggressive prioritization.
Determine the bandwidth required for change and shift the burden onto your employees to accommodate it, rather than imposing change on day-to-day tasks.

On average, it takes people 66 days to adopt a new habit . That's two to three months before you should expect employees to be aware of new procedures and incorporate them into their work patterns.

The initial drop in productivity at the start of a change effort will pay dividends in the long run if employees successfully accept and embrace the new approach.