This article was written by the Portfolio Change Stewardship Office in the Department of Home Affairs.
Change fatigue and its impact
Change fatigue is a condition characterised by lingering mental and physical tiredness associated with organisational change. The sufferer feels neither excitement nor optimism about the change. At an individual level people may experience apathy, disengagement, fatigue and frustration.
Under normal circumstances, most of us can deal with a certain amount of change, even if those changes are uncomfortable, disruptive or perhaps even disastrous.
As independent science and health journalist Tara Haelle explains, “We can do that because, as humans, we have an adaptive system, with the mental and physical reserves that we are able to draw on to help us cope with short term stress situations like natural disasters.”
We refer to this adaptive system as our Surge Capacity.
The pandemic, however, has shifted us into a state of long-term uncertainty—the kind that most of us are not used to. It has resulted in seismic-level change, affecting every facet of our lives on a global, national, state, organisational, community, family and individual level.
And it has happened very quickly.
The growing risk
Gartner 2020 research into the subject showed that, on average, people’s risk of change fatigue is higher than it has ever been and it has reduced our ability to cope with change by 50% of what it was pre-pandemic.
Change fatigue can vary in both its causes and its symptoms. The belief used to be that large-scale organisational or cultural changes led people to feel fatigued faster; however, information from Gartner 2020 has shown that small, frequent changes (particularly those that fly under the radar and are unsupported) are far more likely to result in people feeling fatigued. Common examples of these changes are:
- changes to work arrangements
- policy adjustments
- changes to team structure or composition
- changes to role responsibilities.
To give some context as to how these changes can affect individuals, we draw on a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) in 2021:
- 41% of employees report feeling burned out from their work
- 45% of employees report feeling emotionally drained by their work
- 44% of employees report feeling “used up” by the end of their work day.
Dealing with multiple changes and uncertainty throughout the day depletes mental and emotional energy, previously referred to as our Surge Capacity. Therefore, researchers at the Newport Institute 2021 say, the brain tends to look for shortcuts in order to save energy—either avoiding making a choice altogether, or acting on impulse without thinking through the possible consequences. The flow-on effect from these mental shortcuts can lead to a drop in efficiency, frequent procrastination and snap decisions. In a variety of cases, other symptoms can include irritability, anxiety and even depression.
What you can do about it
So, where do we go from here? How can we bring our Surge Capacity back to pre-pandemic levels?
Research by SHRM suggests that communicating effectively and often can mitigate the early symptoms of change fatigue. We need to consider that traditional, structured and planned communication, which works very well for large scale change, is not as effective when change is unplanned and reactive.
An “always on” change communication strategy that runs alongside the more traditional project change communication offers opportunities to share regular information about both big and small scale change and operational adjustments.
This approach gives people access to self-serve information and support, as and when they need it.
An always on strategy develops individual and operational resilience, as people have trusted information readily available to them.
Dr. Britt Andreatta, an internationally recognised thought leader with a background in leadership, psychology, education, and the human sciences, identifies five key steps needed to combat change fatigue and re-energise yourself:
- Take stock of how tired you feel now. Try to objectively assess your personal surge capacity.
- Rest and recuperate. If you're tired now, you need to get yourself in better shape before you tackle more change. It’s a top priority to build time into your schedule to rest and recharge!
- Do an inventory of change coming your way. Since biologically our bodies don't sort change into professional and personal, you want to look at both areas of your life.
- Map the next 12 months of your change journey. A personal change roadmap will highlight what is going to happen and when, start and end points and where the peaks points of change will be.
- Assess and make adjustments. Reflecting on your change roadmap, ask yourself:
- Are there any intense times on your horizon?
- Could you move the start date for any changes or group changes to make things more manageable?
Self-care during times of high volume change is essential and must be prioritised. It’s important to build and maintain care tactics to keep your energy and surge capacity as high as possible. Prioritise rest and eliminate the unnecessary.
Leaders can make a difference by discussing the following questions with their staff:
- What are we doing that could be categorised as “busyness” vs what is contributing directly to operational outcomes?
- What meetings are we involved in that are robbing us of time and are not driving or producing outcomes?
- How are we doing as a team and as individuals from a mental health perspective?
- What are the initiatives we are investing effort in—do they need a re-think?
About the Author team
The Portfolio Change Stewardship Office in the Department of Home Affairs is both a Competency Centre (that is, a resource pool and knowledge repository) and a Centre of Excellence for change management in government. A multi-award-winning team, they were most recently the recipients of the 2021 Australian Business Awards in two categories: Change Management, and Excellence in Training.
The Portfolio Change Stewardship Office offers a range of services including:
- a Change Accelerator workshop, which provides a high-level analysis of your organisation’s change initiative to help your team understand the impact on people and kickstart the planning process
- a whole-of-government Community of Practice with an emphasis on contemporary change management trends
- a change coaching and mentoring service, and
- the capability-building Change Management Foundation learning program via APS Academy.
To take advantage of the team’s services or find out more, email PortfolioChangeStewardshipOffice@homeaffairs.gov.au