With employees stressed by disruption, HR must lead the charge in ‘routinizing change’
Remember when we thought we’d never return to the office? When our bosses promised job security in the face of automation, only to watch generative AI reshape entire industries overnight?
Those broken promises aren’t just unfortunate—they’re symptomatic of a fundamental shift that’s making the concept of “change leadership” obsolete, according to the global research and advisory firm Gartner.
Only one-third of business leaders report achieving healthy change adoption by employees, according to Gartner’s latest research. Even more sobering? Nearly 80% of employees have low trust in their employer’s ability to manage change effectively.
“We were surprised to see trust that low,” admits Kayla Velnoskey, director of Gartner’s HR practice and lead researcher on the study. “But when you think about it, we’re living in a world characterized by low trust in general—and then you layer on top of that this history of broken promises when it comes to organizational change.”
All this isn’t just about making change that feels better—it’s about hardcore business results. Companies with better-than-average healthy change adoption enjoy two times higher year-over-year revenue growth, according to Gartner. For companies with more than 50,000 employees, that can equal up to $2.2 billion per year.
The study, based on surveys of 141 HR leaders and 2,850 employees, resolved that business today is defined by “ungovernable change,” meaning change that is not just happening faster but that’s fundamentally different than it was in the past. “Changes are stacked on top of one another,” as Velnoskey puts it. “Multiple changes are happening simultaneously, it’s continuous—there’s not a clear start, middle and end anymore. Changes are more interdependent, so if one fails, it creates a cascading effect. And it’s feeling more externally driven than in the past.”
Think shifting regulations, competitive pressure to adopt AI, supply chain disruptions—all forces creating a perfect storm in which even well-intentioned leaders find themselves making promises they cannot possibly keep.
What’s more, inspirational leadership—wherein management paints a compelling picture to get their people excited about what’s coming—only works when employees trust that their bosses can actually deliver. When that trust erodes, even the most charismatic leaders struggle.
“We’re really putting business leaders in a tough position when we ask them to be inspirational about change,” Velnoskey says. “They know very well that some of the things they’re being asked to champion might not end up looking that way at the very end.”
According to the study, when employee trust in change is low, just one-quarter of changes led by inspirational leaders achieve healthy adoption. The game changer: When leaders “routinize change,” employees are three times more likely to adopt changes on time and in a healthy way, even with overall low trust levels.
According to Gartner, routinizing change is about making change adoption instinctive—part of the normal course of doing work rather than something requiring constant motivation.
Gartner identifies three primary ways HR can help leaders make that shift:
Clarify the change role of leaders. Help management understand that in today’s work environment, they are always change leaders—not just during major transformations. That means regularly preparing employees for change and focusing on acknowledging progress on interim goals rather than selling an ever-shifting vision.
Equip leaders with “emotion regulation tools.” Instead of trying to overcome discomfort by promising the team how great change will be, give leaders tools to help employees understand and cope with their feelings about change. They include the “circle of control” exercise, which helps team members identify what they can control or must accept about a certain change.
Help leaders build “change reflexes.” Identify core change skills that employees need regardless of the type of change, then find moments within daily work to practice those skills.
Leena Rinne, VP of leadership, business and coaching for the learning experience platform Skillsoft, stresses that HR must equip leaders with “power skills” such as empathy, self-awareness and emotional intelligence, enabling them to help employees process discomfort, navigate uncertainty and build resilience.
“To make change stick, HR should also help leaders build change reflexes by identifying core change skills and embedding opportunities to practice them in daily workflows,” she adds. “When HR supports leaders in these ways, change becomes less about managing disruption and more about cultivating a culture of agility, trust and human-centered growth.”
Leadership coach Gia Lacqua argues that the problem isn’t change so much as how leaders “push down” change without addressing the psychology behind it. “People don’t fear change—they fear what they’ll lose because of it. Status. Stability. Identity. And when they’re hit with one wave of change after another, without time to recalibrate, it’s not just resistance, it’s exhaustion. We’ve trained people to brace for disruption, not to believe in transformation.”
Meanwhile, employees, says Lacqua, are sick of hearing the same corporate cliches about “constant change” when the real reasons are being withheld. “That erodes trust faster than the change itself,” she says.
The Gartner study advises that the path forward isn’t about employers getting better at inspiration—it’s about making change so routine that employees don’t need to trust the vision to move forward but simply need to trust the process.
As Velnoskey puts it: “We have evidence that this might have worked in the past, but it’s not working in today’s environment. Change is different. The world around us is different. And we need to start doing something different.”