Why ‘Change Fatigue’ Is Actually a Culture Problem (And How to Fix It)

For years, I watched organizations try to solve change fatigue by slowing down change. They’d pump the brakes on new initiatives, delay technology rollouts, and push back project timelines. The results? The fatigue got worse.
The problem isn’t the change itself. The problem is the culture that surrounds it.

What Change Fatigue Actually Is

Gartner defines change fatigue as negative employee responses to change, including apathy, burnout, and frustration, that harm organizational outcomes. Their research found that 77% of HR leaders report their employees are fatigued from all the change.
That number stopped me cold when I first read it. Nearly eight out of ten organizations are dealing with exhausted employees. And that exhaustion has teeth.

According to the same research, change fatigue causes employees’ intent to stay with their employer to decline by as much as 42%. Employee performance can drop by as much as 27%. We’re not talking about minor inconvenience. We’re talking about organizational damage.
But here’s what really matters: the amount of change that the average employee can absorb without becoming fatigued is half what it was just a few years ago. Employees’ ability to absorb change has plummeted precisely when organizations need more change to stay competitive.
This is the part most leaders miss. The volume of changes isn’t the most important factor driving change fatigue. The level of disruption is. And disruption is a culture problem.

Why Traditional Change Management Fails

Most change management approaches focus on the wrong things. They obsess over timelines, communication plans, and project milestones. They tell employees how they should implement changes in their day-to-day work instead of investing in dialogue about their fears and worries.
The result? Eight out of ten CIOs don’t make fatigue a regular part of their conversations about business technology initiatives.
I’ve seen this play out dozens of times in my consulting work. A company announces a major transformation. Leadership rolls out the communication plan. They host town halls. They send weekly emails and check every box in the change management playbook.
And employees still burn out.

The McKinsey Health Institute found that employers who aren’t employing a systemic approach are not seeing improvements in burnout and employee mental health. Individual interventions like yoga classes or meditation apps don’t move the needle. The most powerful drivers of burnout are systemic factors: imbalances between demands and resources, lack of individual autonomy, and negative work environments.
Read that again. The most powerful driver of burnout isn’t workload. It’s workplace behavior and culture.

The Culture Connection

McKinsey’s research across 15 countries and nearly 15,000 employees revealed something that should change how every leader thinks about change management. Experiencing toxic workplace behavior was the single biggest predictor of an employee’s burnout symptoms and intent to leave, by a large margin. It predicted more than 60% of the total variance.
Employees who report experiencing high levels of toxic behavior at work are eight times more likely to experience burnout symptoms. Eight times.

When I share this in my keynotes on thriving through relentless change, audiences often push back. They say their culture isn’t toxic. They point to their engagement scores, their perks, their flexible work policies. But toxic behavior isn’t always obvious. It’s the meeting where someone’s idea gets dismissed without consideration. The reorganization announced without explanation. It’s the leader who says they want feedback but punishes people who give it. These moments erode trust. And without trust, every change becomes threatening instead of energizing.

The Real Solution: Culture That Absorbs Change

Gartner research shows that when managers create a psychologically safe environment for their employees, it can produce up to a 46% reduction in change fatigue. Forty-six percent. From one cultural factor.

This is why I built my work around the 7 Pillars of Culture. These aren’t soft concepts. They’re the operating system that determines whether change lands or crashes.

Transparency means employees understand the “why” behind decisions. When people understand context, change feels purposeful instead of random.
Listening means leaders actually hear concerns before they become crises. The best way to manage change and reduce change fatigue is to focus on how employees experience change, not just the outcomes.
Acknowledgement means recognizing the emotional weight of constant disruption. Employees need to know their exhaustion is seen and taken seriously.
Psychological safety means people can voice concerns without fear. Simply involving employees in change efforts is necessary but insufficient.

Organizations must provide those employees an environment where they can actually speak up. Day-to-Day Changes Matter More Than Big Transformations.

One finding from the research surprised me. Day-to-day changes, like changes to direct managers, team composition, and job responsibilities, are significantly more fatiguing than large-scale organizational transformations. They’re more disruptive to employees personally.
Employees must regularly absorb multiple changes simultaneously with little time to respond to one change before the next hits.
This is what I call “small change fatigue.” It’s death by a thousand paper cuts instead of one dramatic wound.

The Visier 2023 research found that seven in ten respondents agree they are more anxious at work than they were the previous year. The most significant feelings affecting their work included increased burnout (38%), increased stress or anxiety levels (33%), and increased desire to job search (30%).

The fix isn’t fewer changes. The fix is a culture that helps people process changes as they happen. In my culture framework, I emphasize creating space for employees to absorb one change before piling on the next. It requires leaders who understand that their job isn’t just announcing change but shepherding people through it.

What Actually Works

Let me be direct about what the research says actually reduces change fatigue.

Two-way dialogue significantly increases both change success and psychological safety. This isn’t holding a Q&A session where leadership reads pre-written responses. This is genuine conversation where leaders admit uncertainty and invite co-creation.
Respecting the emotional side of change creates lasting positive impact. Since positive or negative emotional impact builds positive or negative long-lasting memory in our brains, it’s critical to create as many positives as possible. Some companies include “listening to the drawbacks” sessions in their change plans, where employees openly share concerns.
Distributing management obligations across multiple individuals prevents leaders from overlooking worker fatigue. When a single manager owns all aspects of a project, fatigue signals get missed. Cross-functional accountability keeps attention on the human impact.
Building trust before you need it. Gartner found that employees who trust their leaders are more resilient to change because they give the benefit of the doubt when disruptions happen.

The Thriving Question

In 2016, Gartner’s Workforce Change Survey showed 74% of employees were willing to change work behaviors to support organizational changes. By 2022, that number dropped to 43%. The willingness to embrace change hasn’t disappeared. It’s been exhausted out of people.
But the solution isn’t to stop changing. The workplace isn’t slowing down. AI is accelerating disruption. Economic pressures require constant adaptation. Competition demands continuous improvement.

The question isn’t whether your organization will face relentless change. The question is whether your culture will help your people thrive through it. Grant Thornton’s 2024 State of Work survey found that 51% of employees have suffered burnout in the past year, a 15 percentage-point increase from the previous year. The top cause? Mental and emotional stress at 63%.
The organizations winning right now aren’t the ones with fewer changes. They’re the ones where culture acts as a buffer between constant disruption and human wellbeing.

Building Your Buffer

When I work with organizations on this challenge, I start with three questions:

First, how do employees hear about changes that affect them? If the answer is “mass email” or “town hall announcement,” there’s work to do. The best cultures create cascading conversations where people can process change in small groups with their direct leaders.

Second, what happens when someone raises a concern during a change? If concerns get dismissed, minimized, or punished, psychological safety is compromised. Every unaddressed concern becomes stored resentment that compounds with the next change.

Third, do your leaders model adaptability or just demand it? Employees watch how leaders react to changes that affect them personally. If leadership responds to disruption with frustration and resistance, employees learn that’s acceptable.
These questions reveal culture gaps that no change management methodology can fix.

What This Means for You

If you’re a leader dealing with burned-out teams, stop looking at your change calendar and start looking at your culture.
Ask yourself: When was the last time someone disagreed with me in a meeting? When was the last time an employee told me they were struggling before they hit crisis? When was the last time we slowed a change because people needed more time to absorb the previous one?
The answers reveal your real change capacity. And that capacity is a function of culture, not workload.

The research is clear. Burnout isn’t just an individual problem requiring individual solutions. High rates of burnout are a powerful warning sign that the organization, not the individuals in the workforce, needs systematic change. You can’t yoga your way out of a broken culture.
But you can build a culture that helps people thrive through relentless change. And in a world that’s only accelerating, that’s the only sustainable competitive advantage.

About the Author: Chris Dyer is Inc. Magazine’s #1 Leadership Speaker on Culture and bestselling author of The Power of Company Culture and Remote Work. His keynote “Thriving Through Relentless Change” helps organizations build cultures where people don’t just survive disruption, they excel through it. Contact Chris to bring this message to your team.