Dive Brief:
- Business leaders underestimate how disruptive change can be, according to findings from learning and development company Insights. Before their most recent change program, 39% of survey respondents said they expected moderate or major disruption, but 51% said they experienced it.
- Unmanaged disruptions led to productivity drops, with 41% of affected organizations needing more than three months to recover.
- More acutely, 87% of HR respondents said they were not highly prepared for their most recent significant organizational change. These findings mirror previous reports from this year suggesting that few executives demonstrate the ability to successfully navigate change.
Dive Insight:
The Insights research touched on several different kinds of change, including shifts in leadership personnel, market expansion, organizational restructuring, strategy reset, workforce reductions, or mergers and acquisitions. The biggest transformation happening for survey respondents was the implementation of new technologies.
Lack of preparation for such changes seems to be a recurring theme in the world of work, with only 13% of HR leaders telling leadership development firm DDI in a separate survey that they believe their leaders are “very capable of anticipating and reacting to change.”
“Leaders today are juggling multiple challenges, managing multi-generational workforces through what can feel like endless cycles of change. Many fall back on experience in difficult times, having ‘been there, done that,’” Tricia Nelson, global marketing and sales director at Insights, said in a statement Thursday. “But as our research shows, assuming that experience trumps self-development has significant consequences for productivity.”
Insights interviewed 880 HR leaders across 11 countries and multiple sectors for the survey.
HR must be agile in the face of change, recent reports suggest. Mercer’s Global Talent Trends for 2026 report found that about one-third of HR leaders and nearly as many C-suite leaders said that reinventing HR was a priority this year. Mercer’s directive for this reinvention is HR transforming from work support to redesigning work itself.
Nelson characterized the gap between expectation and reality for business leaders as a “real opportunity for those willing to take it.” She added, “Leaders who lean into the discomfort of admitting they have more to learn, developing their own self-awareness and that of their teams before change hits, will reap the rewards.”