Organizations continue to adapt to new technologies, market pressures, and evolving business models. But successful transformation depends on the people experiencing it, and a structured approach to supporting them is critical. Despite growing investments in change enablement, innovation tools, and performance improvement initiatives, not all employees are equally supported through the process.
Perceptyx surveyed over 3,000 full- and part-time employees across the United States to explore how people experience change and innovation in their organizations. The results reveal a clear divide. While executives tend to report strong support and involvement, individual contributors are notably less likely to feel encouraged, heard, or positively impacted by change. Employees who feel supported through change are 66% more likely to be fully engaged and 80% more likely to intend to stay — gaps that directly affect retention and innovation capacity.
The findings reveal where the gaps are most acute and which organizational behaviors most reliably close them.
One of the clearest findings from the panel is that support for navigating change increases with job level. When asked if they feel supported in their efforts to adapt to change, just 60% of individual contributors agreed. That number rose to 72% for managers and 81% for executives.This matters because change success depends on supporting people through transitions at every level, not just at the top. Without broad adoption, organizations can't realize the full return on their change investments.
The same pattern emerged for perceptions of leadership. While 77% of executives believe that senior leaders guide their organization through change effectively, just 49% of individual contributors said the same.
These differences connect directly to engagement, pride, and retention outcomes.
66% are fully engaged (vs. just 8% of those who do not feel supported)
87% say they are proud to work at their organization (vs. 29%)
82% would recommend it as a great place to work (vs. 20%)
80% say they intend to stay for at least the next 12 months (vs. 34%)
The data shows that employees who feel supported through change are 8x more likely to be fully engaged and more than twice as likely to intend to stay.
Innovation is often positioned as everyone’s responsibility, but employees at lower levels don’t always experience it that way. When asked if they feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things:
56% of individual contributors agreed
73% of managers and 82% of executives agreed
In other words, there more senior the role, the more likely respondents were to say that change efforts had improved outcomes or increased effectiveness. For example:
60% of individual contributors said a recent change in how their team works led to better outcomes for customers, compared to 78% of executives
57% of individual contributors said a recent process change made work more efficient, compared to 80% of executives
Frontline employees aren't seeing or benefiting from the same types of improvements as those in leadership roles. When innovation efforts don't resonate with those closest to the work and customers, long-term progress stalls. Organizations that engage employees in identifying what needs to change build a more responsive and inclusive approach to improvement.
Only 42% of individual contributors said their manager regularly identifies career growth opportunities for them, compared to 64% of managers. This signals a broader disconnect between what leaders may believe is happening and how it’s experienced further down.
Even when continuous improvement is positioned as a priority, the impact varies based on perception. Among employees who — regardless of job level — said improvement is a top or high priority for their team:
74% feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things (vs. 31% of those who say improvement is a low or non-existent priority)
75% feel supported adapting to change (vs. 30%)
67% say senior leaders guide change effectively (vs. 23%)
In short, messaging alone isn't enough. Too often, change management is reduced to a communications plan where leaders announce what's coming without supporting people through the transition. Continuous improvement must be consistently reinforced through systems, recognition, and follow-through that reach every level of the organization.
To lead successful, inclusive change, organizations need to rethink how support and innovation show up across job levels. The following actions can help close the divide:
Audit change support and innovation access by job level. Track whether frontline and mid-level employees receive the same exposure to resources, feedback loops, and development opportunities as leaders. Consider a current state assessment of your organization's readiness for change, and frame findings in terms of what specific roles need to succeed, not just what's changing at the enterprise level.
Equip managers to coach through change. Managers have a unique role in translating strategic change into day-to-day behaviors. Invest in their ability to facilitate team conversations, surface roadblocks, and connect change to individual impact.
Prioritize visibility and implementation of employee ideas. When employees see their suggestions acted upon, it builds trust and motivation. Make ideation part of the process, not a side note. Point-in-time surveys capture how employees perceive the immediate impact of organizational changes in real time. Crowdsourcing enables employees to co-create solutions to organizational challenges. Perceptyx AI Agents can go further, surfacing patterns in open-ended feedback at scale and helping HR teams identify where change support is breaking down before engagement declines.
Treat improvement as a shared responsibility. Ensure that continuous improvement isn't just a top-down initiative. Include employees at all levels in post-mortems, retrospectives, and pilots. Build a structured yet flexible approach to managing change so that inclusion becomes part of your process, not a one-off effort. Celebrating wins associated with changes or improvements at all levels can also help foster a culture of shared responsibility.
Communicate the 'why' and the outcomes. People are more likely to adopt change when they understand its purpose and see its benefits. Communicate how change improves day-to-day work, not only top-line metrics. Employees adopt change more readily when they see its direct impact on how they get work done.
Change management is the process of preparing, supporting, and guiding employees through organizational change. It covers communicating why a change is happening, giving people the resources to adapt, and measuring whether the change actually worked. About 50% of organizational change initiatives fail, often because the people side of the process gets less attention than the technical side. Effective change management addresses that gap by treating employee adoption as a core outcome, not a side effect.
Most change management frameworks share five core steps: (1) assess organizational readiness and identify which groups need the most support; (2) build a clear plan that explains the purpose, timeline, and expected outcomes; (3) equip managers to guide their teams through the transition day-to-day; (4) open channels for employees at every level to give feedback and flag problems early; (5) measure impact over time and adjust based on what the data shows. The steps matter less if continuous improvement is not treated as a shared responsibility.
Our survey data from 3,000+ U.S. employees shows only 60% of individual contributors feel supported when adapting to change, compared to 81% of executives. The gap comes down to three factors: limited access to information about why changes are happening, fewer opportunities to contribute ideas, and managers who have not been equipped to coach teams through transitions. Only 42% of individual contributors say their manager regularly identifies career growth opportunities for them, compared to 64% of managers who believe they do this. That disconnect between what leaders think is happening and what employees actually experience is one of the most common reasons change efforts stall at the frontline.
The effect is direct and measurable. Among employees who feel supported when adapting to change: 66% are fully engaged (vs. 8% unsupported); 80% plan to stay for at least 12 months (vs. 34%); 87% say they are proud to work at their organization (vs. 29%); 82% would recommend their organization as a great place to work (vs. 20%). These figures come from a survey of 3,000+ U.S. employees conducted in May 2025. They show that how well an organization supports people through change has a direct effect on whether employees stay, engage, and advocate for the organization.
Managers serve as the critical bridge between strategic change initiatives and day-to-day employee experience. They translate high-level organizational shifts into actionable behaviors, surface roadblocks that leadership may not see, and provide the coaching that helps teams navigate uncertainty. Our data shows that 72% of managers feel supported through change compared to just 60% of individual contributors, suggesting that equipping managers with the right tools and training creates a ripple effect. When managers can facilitate meaningful conversations about change and connect it to individual impact, adoption rates improve across their entire team.
Effective measurement goes beyond tracking project milestones to assess how employees at different levels are experiencing the change. Start by segmenting survey data by job level, department, and tenure to identify where support gaps exist. Track leading indicators like whether employees understand the purpose of the change, feel equipped to adapt, and see their input reflected in implementation. Lag indicators such as engagement scores, turnover rates, and productivity metrics show whether the change delivered its intended outcomes. Point-in-time surveys capture immediate reactions, while pulse surveys and AI-powered sentiment analysis can surface emerging concerns before they escalate into larger retention or performance issues.
Change communication is one component of change management, but it's not the whole picture. Communication focuses on announcing what's changing, when, and why—it's about information flow. Change management encompasses the full employee experience: assessing readiness, equipping people with resources and training, creating feedback loops, coaching through resistance, and measuring adoption over time. Our research shows that even when continuous improvement is positioned as a priority, only 31% of employees who say improvement is a low priority feel encouraged to innovate, compared to 74% where it's reinforced through systems and follow-through. That gap illustrates why organizations need structured support at every stage of the transition.
Frontline employees frequently report feeling excluded from innovation processes, even when organizations position innovation as everyone's responsibility. Only 56% of individual contributors feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things, compared to 82% of executives. This gap exists because frontline workers often lack visibility into how their ideas are evaluated, rarely see their suggestions implemented, and don't always understand how changes connect to their daily work. When employees closest to customers and operations aren't meaningfully involved in identifying what needs to change, organizations miss critical insights and struggle to build the buy-in needed for sustainable improvement. Closing this gap requires treating ideation as part of the formal process, not an optional add-on, and demonstrating that employee input directly shapes outcomes.