There are many drivers of organisational change. These include:

• Growth opportunities, especially new markets.
• Economic downturns and challenging trading conditions.
• Shifts in strategic objectives.
• Technological developments.
• Competitive pressures, including new entrants, mergers and acquisitions.
• Customer or supplier pressure, particularly shifting markets.
• Government legislation/initiatives.

Change is not only constant, it can also be unpredictable and complex. Many factors require organisations to evolve and adapt. Recent examples include the COVID-19 pandemic, financial pressures, corporate scandals and greater public scrutiny. Meanwhile, technology is driving new forms of employment relationship. All this has fundamentally changed the way businesses operate.

In this context, organisational change is required to achieve organisational objectives. Commitment of an organisation’s people needs to be maintained throughout any change, often at the same time as ensuring business continuity. So, it’s vital to consider carefully the way any change is managed.

People are at the centre of many changes in the workplace. People professionals and HR functions are often best placed to drive effective change. They have a role and responsibility to ensure appropriate and effective change, including:

• organisational development,
• training,
• due process,
• employee voice, and
• clear communications.

People professionals work across different departments, which enables them to anticipate, design, and shape organisational change collaboratively. This contributes to an organisational understanding of the people implications of change. 

Change management matters. Not least because change is taking place at an accelerating pace. Technological change has introduced new ways of working. This has improved communication, knowledge sharing and flexibility. However, it is often cited that a high percentage of change initiatives fail. Not introducing change effectively can have a significant impact. It can cause loss of market position, stakeholder credibility and key employees. It can also reduce employee engagement and motivation. 

Change initiatives are believed to fail for various reasons. Often these reasons involve lacking what is considered necessary for effective change, for example: 

• Lacking an understanding of the type and complexity of the change.
• Not addressing individual impacts and emotions associated with the change, leading to resistance.
• Failure to create a culture of change.
• Lack of visible commitment to change, particularly by senior leaders.
• Poor communication of the reasons for the change.
• Lacking effective project management.
• Over-managing the change initiative at the expense of enacting change.

Individual and group resistance to change

Individuals or groups may block or disrupt an attempt to introduce change. This is known as resistance to change. Resistance is not necessarily negative. Resistance to change may be a deep rooted threat response, designed to keep us safe. This is demonstrated by our Neuroscience in action research. Reasons for resistance are often not related to the change itself. Instead, they involve fear of personal losses. Other reasons include shock, uncertainty, inconvenience and competence fears. It is therefore important to diagnose the cause of employee resistance. This will help determine the focus of effort in trying to address the issues presented.

Change is complex and there isn’t a single solution to managing it. However, there are a number of key areas of focus. Our research on transformational change was undertaken with the University of Bath. It identified ten techniques that fall into three themes. These can be applied to a variety of change management scenarios. The key actions outlined by the research are detailed below. These areas should always be considered when planning change programmes. However, the pace of change sometimes dictates the need for a faster response. In these situations, clear communication and voice are most important. They ensure the best possible result in difficult circumstances.

Our Embracing and Leading Organisational Change podcast also explores effective change.

Designing the transformation

Leaders and designers of change need to be able to ‘read’ their organisation’s context. This helps to identify any aspects that might hinder change. Building organisational change capacity is the first step in any change programme. Any obstacles to enable the desired change also need to be identified and overcome.

Aligning strategy and culture

For transformation to succeed, the change needs to align strategic and cultural aspirations. The new strategic goals of the organisation should be used as a starting point. The aim is to create a supportive and goal-consistent culture. This is reinforced through relevant beliefs and behaviours.

Open discussion and debate should be encouraged in the top team. This enables more proactive, opportunistic change to happen. This allows movement away from old irrelevant business models.

Techniques for building understanding

Ambiguity and purposeful instability

A transformational change vision should be ambitious, but should also be presented in unambiguous terms. However, individuals will make sense of the situation through active questioning. Therefore, the change design stage should retain some ambiguity.  

Narratives, storytelling and conversations

Shared change narratives and stories can be used as communication devices. This makes the content and implications of new strategies easier to understand. This will enhance individuals’ ability to translate change into meaningful actions for themselves. Organisation development can help navigate the complexities of communicating change.

Physical representations, metaphors and play

Participative design is an alternative to traditional and often rather dry change workshops. Participation can involve the creation of shared representations of the change. These may include metaphors and symbols. This supports individuals to translate change rhetoric into meaningful change-related actions.

Managing the transformation

Relational leadership

Change is rarely implemented effectively using authority and control. Instead, leaders can achieve transformational change through negotiation and social interaction.

Building trust

For significant change to thrive it requires high levels of trust. Trustworthiness is enhanced by designing change competently. The needs of the business, employees and the wider community need to be addressed. This should be done with integrity. Fair human resources processes during change also foster trustworthiness.

Voice, dialogue and rethinking resistance

Employees who raise concerns about change should not be labelled as resisting. Instead, this should be reframed and reinterpreted as legitimate employee voice. A positive initiative often utilised is to introduce change ‘champions’, who can inspire others to engage with the programme of change. They can also provide feedback on colleagues views regarding the change.

Emotion, energy and momentum

Change is often an emotional process. Therefore, emotional awareness by those leading and designing change is required. This can help to anticipate and respond to reactions to change. Momentum also needs to be maintained throughout the change process.

Our transformational change research was carried out with the University of Bath. It explores HR and L&D’s role in managing change. This is illustrated though four case study organisations. The research provides various recommendations for people professionals.

People professionals have a significant role to play in any change management process. They often act as ‘stage directors of change’ playing a critical role behind the scenes. To be successful expert initiators and facilitators of transformational change, people professionals should:

• Be willing to work as the ‘hidden hand’ of change, highly relevant to its success. Work in partnership with the CEO/business leader and their executive team. This involves being ‘backstage’ support for the leaders’ ‘front stage’ activity.
• Translate the overall vision through mass communication. This should use of techniques that change interactions and challenge entrenched systems.
• Empower change advocates, remove obstacles, act on data and ensure leader visibility.

Change is a 'core' knowledge area of our People Profession Map. People professionals can become trusted advisors by applying situational judgement. They should also demonstrate moral integrity. This helps the organisation create long-term sustainability. HR is responsible for making decisions that affect workers’ lives. Therefore, it’s important that practitioners uphold professional standards. Even in difficult situations. For more, see our report on professional identity.

Books and reports

Cameron, E. and Green, M. (2019) Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organisational change. 5th ed. London: Kogan Page.

Holbeche, L. (2018) The agile organization. 2nd ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

On change management. HBR’s 10 must reads (2011) Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Visit the CIPD and Kogan Page Bookshop to see all our priced publications currently in print.

Journal articles

Aguirre, D. and Alpern, M. (2014) 10 principles of leading change management. Strategy+Business. No 75, Summer. pp65-71.

Anand, N. and Barsoux, J-L. (2017) What everyone gets wrong about change management. Harvard Business Review. Vol 95, No 6, Nov/Dec, pp78-85.

Brown, G. (2018) Six ways to help guide employees through multiple changes. People Management (online). 14 June,

Lawrence, P. (2015) Leading change: insights into how leaders actually approach the challenge of complexity. Journal of Change Management. Vol 15, No 3, pp231-252.

Montreuil, V. (2024) Developing organizational change capability: towards a dynamic, multi-faceted and muulti-temporal model. Journal of Organizational Change Management. Vol. 37, No 2, pp423-438.

Peters, R. (2020) What lessons can COVID-19 teach us about organisational change? CIPD People Profession Insight. 12 June.

Wiedner, R., Barrett, M. and Oborn, E. (2017) The emergence of change in unexpected places: resourcing across organizational practices in strategic change. Academy of Management Journal. Vol 60, No 3. pp823-854. Reviewed in Bitesize research.

CIPD members can use our online journals to find articles from over 300 journal titles relevant to HR.

Members and People Management subscribers can see articles on the People Management website.