High-Risk Organizational Change Is Becoming Both More Common and More Misaligned

The changes companies struggle with most aren't outliers, and the gap between how leaders and employees experience them is widening. According to "The Change Tipping Point" report, business leaders ranked significant layoffs, shifts in company culture, mission, and vision, and company reorganizations as the changes most likely to fail, with increased workload and burnout among the most common consequences employees experience after major organizational changes.

Meanwhile, a 2026 Bain & Company survey of nearly 1,000 global executives and employees who had undergone a reorganization found that 88% of company leaders believed their new organizational structure would achieve its goals, while only 36% of employees working within those structures agreed. As companies increasingly implement high-stakes changes, there’s a growing disconnect between what leaders think is working and what employees actually experience.

Poor Communication Comes at a Cost to Successful Organizational Change

Communication inconsistencies are linked to misalignments that can contribute to failed business transformations. Per "The Change Tipping Point" report, 99% of leaders feel they communicate change well, while 25% of employees feel they received inadequate communication about company changes.

Global telecommunications company Mitel’s “State of Workforce Communication” survey of 2,000 IT decision-makers and workers across North America and Europe also found that 93% of leaders consider communication tools integral to everyday operations. Yet, only 34% of workers say those tools are highly effective. When employees are already stretched thin by the scale and type of changes underway, lapses in communication don’t just slow transformation. They can determine whether it succeeds at all.

The Financial Toll of Failed Business Transformation

The consequences of misalignment and miscommunication surrounding major change initiatives don't just affect employees—they could have a measurable impact on business outcomes. A 2025 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that employee disengagement and burnout cost an average 1,000-person U.S. company $5.04 million annually in productivity losses, missed workdays, and related health effects. Employee burnout and dissatisfaction threaten to erode company profitability and, subsequently, the resources organizations depend on to execute transformation initiatives successfully in the first place.

How Leaders Can Get Organizational Change Right

The volume and complexity of business transformations facing organizations today aren't going away, but companies can adopt best practices to get change right. Foremost, when layoffs can be avoided, research suggests they should be. Research published in the Academy of Management Journal found that employment downsizing produced minimal improvements in return on assets, with companies that cut headcount alone failing to outperform industry peers on profitability.

However, when high-risk changes are necessary, how they’re communicated matters just as much as the decisions themselves. As “The Change Tipping Point” report notes, “even when the pace of change can't be slowed, it can be better supported”. Leaders who approach difficult changes with that mindset are better positioned to maintain trust and keep employees engaged through transitions.

Further, the report offers five principles for effectively managing change, including scale, story, strategy, stakeholders, and sentiment. This framework addresses multiple areas of organizational change, from sequencing initiatives so employees don’t become overwhelmed, to crafting transparent narratives that explain the reasons behind a change, to actively engaging the leaders who can champion transformation. The common thread across all five principles is communication, ensuring the right messages reach the right people at the right time, with enough consistency to cultivate buy-in from employees.

Active listening strategies can also help resolve communication disconnects between leaders and employees. As previously reported, gathering employee feedback through one-on-one meetings, pulse check surveys, and other listening channels is a direct way leaders can understand what employees are actually experiencing.

And giving employees a sense of ownership over change can improve how initiatives roll out across work teams. A peer-reviewed study published in Administrative Sciences, which surveyed 412 hybrid employees across sectors including IT, consulting, financial services, and manufacturing, found that employees who feel a genuine sense of ownership over their work are significantly less likely to resist change, with transparent communication and workplace autonomy being the two conditions most likely to build that ownership. When employees have a hand in shaping how change unfolds, trust follows, and so does the performance, productivity, and business growth companies rely on.

Harvard Business School offers a case study in what this can look like in practice. When Takuya Shimamura became CEO of international glassmaker AGC in 2015, he addressed a stagnating business not by restructuring alone but by intentionally rebuilding company culture, encouraging risk-taking, repositioning resistant managers, and overhauling hiring to reflect new values. AGC has since reported record net sales of ¥2.067 trillion ($12.78 billion).

The consequences of poorly managed business transformation are measurable, from burnout and turnover to billions in lost productivity. For business leaders, the question is no longer whether change is coming. It's whether their organizations are built to carry people through it. Those who invest in how change is managed and communicated, not just what changes are made, will be the ones best positioned to turn transformation into a lasting competitive advantage.