From change fatigue to clarity: The role of coaching

Most Change Management strategies aim to create enthusiasm and buy-in, getting people impacted by the change to feel inspired and energised. But somewhere between the restructure, the new system, the latest strategy and the culture programme, all running simultaneously, the goodwill quietly drains away. People stop asking questions in town halls and the attendance on your Change Network calls starts to drop off. The energy that once felt like momentum starts to dip.

This is change fatigue and it’s a genuine risk to the success of your transformation.

What is change fatigue, really?

It’s not just being a bit fed up with change. Researchers Bernerth, Walker and Harris (2011), who developed one of the first validated measures of the phenomenon, define it as “a perception that too much change is taking place”, a state where excessive change leaves employees exhausted and unable to adapt further. More recently, EDUCAUSE researchers described it as “a progressive depletion of psychological resources, which erodes the capacity of people to stay engaged in their work.”

In practical terms, the symptoms are easy to spot:

• loss of confidence in leadership

• a drop in proactive behaviour

• passive resignation rather than active resistance

• people aren’t kicking back, they’re just running on empty.

And it’s increasingly common. Gartner research found that the average employee experienced ten planned enterprise changes in 2022, nearly double the number from 2016. Meanwhile, employees’ overall ability to cope with change has fallen to roughly half of pre-pandemic levels. The pace of change has accelerated; the human capacity to absorb it hasn’t.

The role of coaching

This is where coaching earns its place and it is an under-used, but highly practical intervention.

When people are experiencing change fatigue, what they often lack isn’t information, it’s perspective, agency and the space to think clearly. A good coach provides exactly that: a structured, confidential conversation focused on what the individual needs to move forward.

During periods of sustained change, coaching typically helps people to:

• Rebuild clarity about their role and what’s expected of them

• Understand their strengths and how best to use to navigate, or lead, change

• Develop practical coping strategies and resilience habits

• Regain a sense of control in situations that feel uncertain.

One often-overlooked group here is middle managers. They’re frequently caught between a leadership team championing the change and a frontline team quietly struggling with it. Coaching at this level can be some of the highest-impact work in any change programme.

Supporting employee wellbeing practically

Coaching addresses the individual, but employee wellbeing during change also needs to be considered at team and organisational level.

That means creating the conditions where it’s genuinely safe to say “this is hard“, not just stating it as a value, but modelling it from the top. It means sequencing changes where possible, rather than layering them all at once (a good Change Impact Assessment can really shine a light on how much change you are asking specific groups to cope with at any one time). It means equipping managers with the skills to have honest, supportive conversations with their teams, not just to deliver messages from above, but to really listen.

This last point matters more than most organisations realise. Line managers have more day-to-day influence on how employees experience change than almost any other factor. Yet they’re often given the least support when things get turbulent, expected to be resilient champions of change while managing their own uncertainty in private.

Investing in manager capability, through training, coaching and peer support is one of the most effective things an organisation can do to protect its people through periods of sustained change.

We supported a leading Defence organisation to deliver ‘Leading the Change’ training to key Finance managers and team leaders during a multi-year modernisation initiative. Over 2 sessions, attendees were equipped to understand their own reactions to change, to develop a practical ‘toolkit’ of simple ideas they could use to support their teams through change and created a shared language of change management concepts regardless of their previous experience.

A few principles worth keeping

If you’re trying to address change fatigue in your organisation right now, a few things tend to make a consistent difference:

• Listen before you lead. Pulse surveys and honest one-to-ones surface what’s actually going on before disengagement becomes entrenched

• Pace and sequence deliberately. Not every change can wait, but being intentional about timing shows respect for your people’s capacity.

• Acknowledge when it’s not easy. Culture shifts when leaders demonstrate honesty and vulnerability.

When senior people acknowledge the difficulty of what’s being asked, it gives everyone else permission to be real too.

In a world where change remains a constant, it’s essential to consider how employees can be supported and looked after. Managing change fatigue well takes both expertise and genuine care for people.
If you’d like to talk through how coaching or a more people-centred change approach could work in your organisation, we’d love to hear from you.

Unlock the full potential of your business with our expert insights. Contact us today to discover how we can help you achieve your goals. theteam@projectone.com