What happened
In an opinion piece, as reported by Talent Canada, change strategist Myriane Ouellette argues that most change efforts fail for a reason leaders rarely test: the people involved lack the capacity to absorb the change. Vision and execution are usually not the problem.
She describes change as continuous now. AI adoption, restructuring, role redesign and funding shifts overlap rather than arrive one at a time. Teams meet each new initiative carrying unfinished past changes, role ambiguity, departed leaders and promises that did not materialize. Personal pressures such as grief, caregiving and financial strain also shape how much people can take on.
Her view is that early resistance is often a sign that readiness was never assessed. She cites Harvard Business Review research on emotional impact and psychological safety, and Gallup global workplace findings that engagement drops when change comes without clarity or support. She suggests leaders ask what a team has already been through, what losses have gone unacknowledged, and where clarity ends and assumption begins. Her case is for clarity and pacing over urgency.
Why it matters if you are hiring
Change load is a hiring issue. If your team is absorbing a system rollout, a reorganization or new AI tools, every new hire lands in the middle of it. Open roles often exist because someone left, and the people who stayed are usually carrying that work too.
That affects decisions you make this quarter. Backfilling a role late stretches the remaining team further. Adding a new hire during a restructure, with no clear manager or defined scope, sets that person up to disengage early. Strong candidates, especially experienced ones, notice when a team is stretched and unclear about its direction, and they ask about it in interviews.
The article is an opinion piece and offers no hiring data. But the point holds for employers across Canada: capacity is part of the plan, and headcount is one way to add it. Temporary and contract staff can also take routine work off a team so that the change itself gets attention.
One thing to do this week
Before your next rollout or reorganization, hold a 30-minute session with each team lead and ask three questions: what has this team absorbed in the past 12 months, which work is already behind, and what would they stop doing to make room. If the answers show a gap, fix staffing first, then set the launch date.
Traverse has placed operations, contract, finance and technical people with Canadian employers since 1997, and we help hiring managers add the right capacity so teams can take on change without burning out.