Corporate giants like Disney, Meta, and Target are making headlines with DEI policy reversals, spurred by recent anti-DEI executive orders. But what’s the real cost? These shifts can breed employee distrust and drive attrition.
In our latest Q&A, change management expert Shannon Gabriel, VP of Leadership Solutions at TBM Consulting, reveals the critical mistakes leaders must avoid when implementing policy changes. Learn how to communicate effectively, avoid costly delays, and ensure your message resonates with your workforce.
Here’s what she had to say.
From a wave of executive orders impacting American workplaces to economic uncertainty surrounding tariffs and the job market, 2025 is off to a volatile start. What does an accelerated pace of organizational change mean for HR teams?
SG: The last few months have been saturated with sweeping changes that can leave leaders and employees feeling anxious, conflicted and drained. In fact, a recent report by Gallagher found, for the first time, HR leaders view “change fatigue” as one of the top five barriers to success in 2025. In a close second, 39% of HR leaders cited a lack of direction from top leaders as a key organizational barrier this year. These two barriers are closely linked: the more executives are barraged by constant change, the more prone they become to decision paralysis. And with poor direction from the top, the change fatigue trickles down across the organization, increasing the risk of employee burnout, disengagement and attrition.
That means the first step HR teams should take is to ensure leaders are equipped with the resources they need to make sound decisions and communicate them effectively. Second, focus on building employee trust, which often takes a nosedive in times of change. According to Gallup, employees who are experiencing disruptive organizational change are 4.5x as likely to be engaged and 62% less likely to feel burned out when they trust the leadership of their organizations. Encouraging leaders to be vulnerable and transparent can help cultivate this trust.
What are the top change management mistakes you see leaders make with major organizational shifts?
SG: One of the top reasons I see organizational changes fail is because of too much lag time. Leaders wait days, weeks or even months to communicate changes to employees because they want to consider and plan for every possible impact first. But a moment of change is the worst possible time to go silent, because employee assumptions will run wild. Many will assume the worst possible outcome, attributing the executive team’s silence to them not wanting to be the bearer of bad news. In the wake of changes with implications for your workplace, it’s critical that leaders communicate swiftly, even if it’s just to let employees know that the executive team is assessing the impact and will provide a more detailed action plan by a certain date.
The other big mistake I see leaders make is sparing the details when communicating changes. While the communication should be crisp, making the messaging too sparse can leave employees with more questions than answers, and once again, assumptions will spread like wildfire. In turbulent times, it’s important to overcommunicate and leave no detail to the imagination. That means contextualizing the change across every layer of the organization and distilling down how it will impact day-to-day operations for each role.
What role does empathy play in effective change management, and how can leaders demonstrate empathy during times of significant change?
SG: Communicating change is only one half of effective change management, the other half is about active listening. It’s common for change to elicit a broad range of emotions in employees, from fear to frustration to denial. Leaders need to recognize that each team member translates a change through the lens of their unique experiences and anxieties. After communicating a change organization-wide, leaders should follow up with every team to understand how they are interpreting the change. Ask open-ended questions, such as “Here’s what I shared, what did you hear?” or “What came up for you after the town hall?” While you do not need to agree with an employee’s reaction, it is essential to acknowledge what they’re experiencing.
How can leaders foster psychological safety among employees in the face of change?
SG: With any change, employees are fearful of the unknown and how it will impact them. Job security goes together with psychological safety, so it’s important to reassure employees that their role is critical to the future of the company. And, before and after communicating the change, give employees the space to provide candid feedback. Connecting with team members one-on-one through a boots-on-the-ground approach often gives more insight than a survey, as employees may hold back out of concern that a survey isn’t truly anonymous.
How can HR teams reinforce their organization’s values amid changes in policies/programs?
SG: With change management, communicating what will not change is just as important as communicating what will change. HR teams should reiterate the company’s values and unwavering commitment to those values. But to avoid the perception that you’re merely giving lip service to the organization’s values, encourage leaders to model behaviors that align with them. And consider ways to recognize when team members demonstrate these principles in practice, whether it’s a question on performance evaluations or an awards program peers can nominate each other for.