Seven in Ten Employers Admit Change Is Running Them Ragged — and HR Is Expected to Fix It

A new blueprint from consultancy McLean & Company argues that a dedicated change management office can help HR leaders regain control of transformation — but only under the right conditions.

Too many initiatives running at once is the chief culprit behind the strain, according to the firm's HR Trends Report 2026, which found that 70 percent of organisations report difficulties with change management. Leadership is not escaping scrutiny either: just 19 percent of executives rate themselves as highly effective in this area.

McLean & Company's guide, titled "Establish a Change Management Office," is designed to help HR professionals assess their existing structures for steering transformation processes and, where needed, build a dedicated office. The model breaks the work into four stages: an initial stocktake of the status quo, defining purpose and added value, drafting the operating model, and then implementation with long-term safeguarding.

Not a One-Size-Fits-All Remedy

The consultancy is explicit that such an office is no universal solution. Setting one up is advisable only when a clearly defined problem exists, leadership has made a visible commitment, governance gaps are present, and the organisation shows sufficient readiness for change.

The broader debate over structured transformation is playing out in corporate practice as well. At Porsche Consulting, Nicole Beger described an underqualified or undervalued HR business partner as a strategic risk, noting that the HR department comes under the spotlight in times of crisis and must redefine its role.

Hapag-Lloyd is strengthening the HR business partner function under board member Donya-Florence Amer, covering 19,600 employees across 139 countries. At Henkel, HR chief Sylvie Nicol frames continuous change as a fundamental precondition for competitiveness. Signal Iduna is aligning its HR function around measurable business value, while Uwe Schöpe serves as a connecting link at Zurich Group Germany in his dual role as HR board member and labour director.

International voices strike a similar note. At an event in Madrid, Antonio Dvorák Pérez of Telefónica, Virginia Garrido of Ikea España, Marta Cadenas of BBVA and Laura López Giacola of Danone Iberia stressed the strategic direction of HR work. The goal, they said, is not doing more with less but building new capabilities and a greater contribution through trust, training and shared learning.

Research by McKinsey & Company adds a further dimension: while 80 percent of employees notice individual benefits from the use of artificial intelligence, only 37 percent of companies translate that value into their bottom line. Amaia Noguera of McKinsey argued that the HR function can stand at the very start of that transformation.

Change Fatigue Is Mounting

Clearer structures look increasingly urgent given the toll on workforces. A study by TU Dresden found that one in three people in Germany — 34 percent of employees — complain of change fatigue. The phenomenon appears significantly more often in large enterprises than in small and medium-sized businesses.

Data from Statistik Austria, meanwhile, show a general rise in depressive symptoms across the population, from 5.6 percent in 2019 to 9.3 percent in 2025, although Austria-specific figures on transformation-related fatigue are lacking.

Researchers from the universities of Vienna and Graz concluded back in a 2021 study that an organisation's capacity for change can be deliberately trained. As a countermeasure to overload, they recommended cutting the total number of initiatives and opting for smaller change steps rather than sweeping large-scale transformations.

The Gap Between Ambition and Practice

A study by the Dutch A&O fonds Gemeenten and Utrecht University illustrates how far aspiration can outpace reality in HR. HR departments increasingly seek roles as strategic partners and change agents, yet it is precisely in those areas that they post their relatively weakest scores in practice.

Proposed remedies include a structured dialogue between HR and management, development of leadership skills, and data-driven steering. That structured development can pay off is shown by the municipality of Venlo, where internal mobility rose from 1 in 4 to 1 in 3.