Change typically doesn’t come with a roadmap to help navigate around it. It usually shows up like a pulse thunderstorm; it’s fast, messy, and relentless. 

According to a recent report, 69% of employees trust their employers to navigate changes better than governmental organizations and non-governmental ones.

“As an HR professional, there’s a tremendous amount of pressure to deliver on that belief and on that promise,” said Marissa Waldman, founder and CEO at Leaderology during a From Day One webinar. This pressure to guide organizations as they navigate rapid changes was the central theme of the session moderated by Stephen Koepp, co-founder and editor-in-chief of From Day One. 

The panelists agreed that the role of HR has fundamentally shifted. It has expanded from primarily support duties to now include serving as stewards of organizational culture, helping to build trust during periods of digital transformation, corporate restructuring, and global uncertainty. 

The Non-Negotiables: Communication and Psychological Safety

Communication is the most effective tool for managing change. “For me, it’s really about communicating clearly, communicating early, communicating often, and also finding different mediums for communication,” Chantal van der Walt, the SVP of HR at Outokumpu said. 

She recommends staying consistent with an organization’s core messaging while adapting it for different audiences, from directors to front-line workers. 

Tanvi Sondhi, the VP of talent and learning at Novelis, shared one lesson she learned the hard way during a recent company restructuring. “The learning that I had is that whenever you’re going through a change, just be direct, sharp, clear, to the point,” she said. “It really works.”Direct communication helps foster psychological safety among employees, which becomes even more essential when things are changing rapidly. 

Waldman views psychological safety as the direct result of fearless leadership. “When leadership is vulnerable, when the leadership is authentic and transparent, you’re able to maintain a psychologically safe culture,” she said. Leaders should be open to feedback without getting defensive if they don’t get the answers they want, Waldman says. 

Andres Mendoza, the head of talent and culture for BBVA in the U.S., recommends normalizing struggle to foster psychological safety within companies. “Not being okay is okay,” he added. “We are all overwhelmed at one moment in our career that we take things personally and professionally, and that we care about what we do.” 

Mendoza says creating channels for managers and employees to express when they aren’t okay is vital for building trust, which helps with retention. 

The Connective Tissue: Protecting and Empowering Middle Management

The pivotal, often painful, role of middle managers was a recurring theme during the conversation. 

“These mid-level leaders are the shoulders. They are truly the connective tissue for organizations,” Waldman said. “They’re getting strategy from the top. They’re translating it down. They have the relationships. They, in my mind, need to be protected at all costs.”

Middle managers are often stuck managing the emotional fallout from unpopular organizational decisions. Many are promoted for their technical proficiency, not their leadership acumen, and are now being “squashed from the top” and “pushed up from the bottom,” as van der Walt described.

Reema Vaghani, the global VP of learning experience at TaskUs, says companies must now move from merely informing managers about decisions to involving them as architects of change. “We’re giving them the opportunity to be part of this as architects of the change, rather than the responders to the change,” She elaborated when discussing TaskUs’s approach to middle management. 

Vaghani recommends creating mentorship programs that connect managers with C-suite leaders and providing safe spaces for managers to voice disagreements. 

“If people are resisting, that’s good,” Waldman added. “That means that there’s trust and they’re speaking.” The response should be, “Thank you. Thank you. This is good. Let’s talk about this.”

Navigating the Human Impact of Restructuring and AI

Large-scale changes, such as layoffs, can have a profound emotional toll on organizations. Sondhi described observing various reactions to such changes at Novelis, from vocal displeasure to “survivor’s guilt.”

Novelis’s mantra for handling such shifts is to listen and offer transparency. The company focuses on first supporting top and middle leaders so they can manage their teams effectively. Their pre-established cultural beliefs, “be open, build trust, say anything, and be authentic," guide their decisions. “Wherever we followed our cultural beliefs, I think we were on track,” Sondhi said. “But wherever we failed to comply with it is where we started struggling.”

The rise of AI has also been a force of significant disruption within organizations. Vaghani says TaskUs’s culture promotes learning agility with structured skill-up programs. The goal is to be honest about the future. 

“Some of these roles are going to go away,” van der Walt said, “but what are the opportunities? What does it create for you, and how can you develop?”

The Anchor in the Storm: Cultivating Trust and Self-Care

The panel also addressed how HR leaders can advocate for themselves and their teams when they, too, are feeling the strain. Mendoza says that HR professionals are employees first and need support from their own leaders.

Van der Walt notes that being a trustworthy partner to an organization from the beginning makes it easier to navigate complex decisions. “If you have that relationship with the business, you will understand better where they are coming from, and appreciate better why the company needs to maybe do what it needs to do.”

Waldman drew a harder line for those who feel powerless to advocate for themselves. “If you are not respected by the business and you are not able to advocate for yourself, maybe you need to exit,” she added. 

For leaders who stay, the mandate is clear: put on your own oxygen mask first, and then lead with a fearlessly authentic commitment to your people.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Leaderology, for sponsoring this webinar. 

Ade Akin covers workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.

(Photo by Christian Horz/iStock)