The Relentless Pace of Change: How Strategic Comms Can Save Your Workplace

12 April 2025 Reading Time: 5 minutes

by Wayne Aspland

The pace of work is unsustainable. Could this be a case of strategic comms to the rescue?

Recently, there have been four reports that, together, paint a grim picture of today’s working environment. They talk about organisations that are fracturing under the pressure of relentless, accelerating, change.

This is a serious organisational challenge. On the positive side, however, it’s one that effective strategic comms can help manage.

Fracturing workplaces

So, here’s the roll call of scary data. The first two stats deal with change fatigue.

44% of internal communication professionals are suffering from change fatigue according to the recent Gallagher Employee Communication Report. Coincidentally, only 44% of employees are willing to accept change according to Gartner. That number has dropped from 74% in just eight years.

While the second two stats focus on leadership and alignment stresses. 54% of managers are suffering from work-induced stress and fatigue according to another Gartner report.

And 42% of C-suite leaders believe that adopting AI is “tearing their company apart”. That comes from a recent Writer report.

Think this is bad? There’s a lot more to come

Ask yourself this. Do you see a little bit of your organisation in these stats?

If so, you’ve got good reason to be nervous given that the pace of change is only going to accelerate.

And we’re not just talking everyday change… more platform upgrades, process changes etc. 

We’re talking about the sort of transformation that alters organisations, societies and people’s lives.

You may have seen Bill Gates on Jimmy Fallon suggesting that AI could significantly reduce human involvement in education and medicine within ten years.

Even more astounding is this 2024 prediction from the revered futurist, Ray Kurzweil:

“By the early 2030s, human beings will have the entire capacity of a large language model inside their brain.” ChatGPT in your head.

And if that sounds a bit too science fiction for you, consider this. There’s currently a ‘brain implant war’ running between people like Musk, Gates and Bezos. The first human has already received a brain implant and there will be more recipients by the end of this year. 

The price of change fatigue is high

To put this into perspective, Gartner believes the change volume people are coping with has gone from 2 in 2016 to 13 today. And it’s clearly only going to grow. 

Gartner also believes that the price of this is high. They report that change fatigue negatively impacts employee performance, engagement and discretionary effort, intent to stay, inclusion and employee NPS. Not surprisingly, it also has a massive impact on psychological safety.

Comms to the rescue

The message here is clear. This is serious. Unless we find a better way to manage it, the pace of change will become unsustainable (if it isn’t already). 

In short, the way we manage change must change.

Thankfully, this is where the good news comes in.

There are a wide range of practical steps that communication and change professionals can take to help people better manage change.

Prioritisation

The most widely raised issue is the prioritisation of change and management of the change load.

This may not be something communication teams can do alone. It is absolutely something we can influence though. We can build a strong business case for better prioritisation by listening and capturing feedback from our people.

Personally, a stronger focus on prioritisation should also include more rigid guidelines about which changes are made (and which aren’t). I’m sure we’ve all seen examples of major transformations that really didn’t need to happen. A good example of this is the proliferation of collaboration platforms in some businesses.

The project economy

Another point to factor into prioritisation is what Korn Ferry refers to as the Project Economy:

We are also witnessing a significant shift to what is known as the Project Economy and project-driven organizational structures, where business value is generated by successfully completing project after project. 

They suggest that continuous change results in exhaustion (among other issues) and that people need time to reorient between changes.

Communication

Communication teams may not be able to prioritise change alone. But they sure can prioritise communication.

One of the key issues with too much change is the noise created by overcommunication. It not only impacts the experience for employees, but it also weakens cut through. As a result, it damages the effectiveness of the change.

We have a critical role to play in managing the way change is communicated. Less focus on broadcasts and more focus on communication that is instructional and delivered only to the people who need it and, ideally, at the time they need it.

Again, anything else is just noise.

Empathy and acknowledgement

This is a crucial point that applies in several ways.

First up, talk and listen to people. Make impacted people part of the change. Get their views and make sure they are incorporated into decision making.

Second, acknowledge the reality of changes. Most changes carry risks and challenges. Don’t hide them and don’t try to cover up if something goes wrong. It doesn’t just damage morale. It damages credibility and trust as well.

Third, acknowledge the impact on people and recognise them for their efforts. Also, talk about how the organisation is trying to improve.

Alignment

Make it very clear how every change ladders up to the organisation’s purpose, vision and strategy. People need to know why change is happening and what makes it worthwhile.

Of course, this goes right back to the prioritisation discussion. You can’t communicate a clear link if there isn’t one. 

AI and change

When we talk about change fatigue, we need to consider both the employees impacted by change and the teams of people delivering it.

The above measures apply equally to both groups. There is also one final measure that can be particularly helpful to the people delivering change.

It’s AI.

AI can help you:

* Research and compare change approaches for any given type of change

* Better understand how to apply different change approaches

* Create first drafts of change plans, related impact assessments and comms plans. This is particularly valuable given the complexity of some change plans. AI won’t get a plan perfectly right. Nevertheless, as anyone who has created change plans knows, there is nothing worse than staring at the blank template. To generate a first draft quickly is a boon.

* Create and analyse data from feedback loops and perform sentiment analysis.

* Quickly tailor comms and messaging for a variety of different employee personas.

* Provide training and chatbots to support impacted employees.

Conclusion: Not all change is bad

Despite the bad rap it often gets, change is a thoroughly good thing. 

After all, change is where all the opportunity springs from.

And a company that isn’t changing is a company falling behind.

But too much change or change that’s badly executed can be damaging.

This issue of change fatigue is something  we need to address quickly. And communication professionals are well placed to lead the way.

This is the first article in a two-part series. The second article will talk more specifically about the leadership and alignment challenges highlight in the ‘scary stats’ above.

(Image by ChatGPT)

+++

Wayne Aspland is an Australia-based communication professional and writer.

Written by: Editor