Are agencies running out of capacity for change?

Opinion

What happens when an organisation asks people to change faster than they have the capacity to absorb it? Lisa Morgan assesses the risk of change fatigue.

Agencies have always operated in a state of change. Platforms emerge, consumer behaviour shifts, clients and agencies restructure, budgets move, and new capabilities become essential almost overnight. But the volume and velocity of change feel different now.

Across the industry, employees are seeing a continual cycle of redundancies, restructures and consolidation. At the same time, they are being asked to adopt AI-enabled tools, rethink established ways of working, develop new skills and continue meeting demanding client deadlines.

Many are facing change fatigue, the mental and physical exhaustion that happens when people face too many new rules, tools, or updates too quickly.

The Chartered Institute of Professional Development explains that for staff, economic uncertainty, restructures, and fast-moving technology can all feel overwhelming, especially as workplace demands continue to rise.

What happens when an organisation asks people to change faster than they have the capacity to absorb it?

The latest IPA Agency Census gives some context. Headcount across IPA member agencies fell 6.8% in 2025, with creative and other non-media agency employment falling 14.3%. The IPA also reported increased staff turnover and declining retention.

Against that backdrop, every announcement about automation, restructuring or a new operating model lands differently.

Change fatigue can easily be mistaken for resistance. An employee questioning the latest transformation programme may not be unwilling to evolve. They may simply have been through several restructures, system migrations and technology rollouts, while continuing to manage the same workload.

When organisations continually add without removing, that capacity eventually runs out. The signs can be subtle: lower engagement, slower adoption, reduced curiosity, employees reverting to familiar ways of working, or growing scepticism towards the next initiative.

Eventually, people stop asking whether the latest initiative will work because they assume another one will soon replace it.

AI brings this tension into sharp focus. Used well, AI can remove repetitive tasks, accelerate analysis and create more time for judgement, creativity, relationships and higher-value thinking.

Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index found that 66% of AI users say AI has enabled them to spend more time on higher-value work.

But the same research highlights the pressure employees are feeling. Some 65% fear falling behind if they do not adapt quickly, while 45% say it feels safer to focus on existing goals than redesign how they work. And worryingly, only 26% believe their leadership is clearly and consistently aligned on AI.

So, how do we get it right?

The answer cannot be to wait for a more predictable world.

Instead, agency leaders need to become better at managing capacity for change, just as we already manage capacity for client delivery. From what I have seen within our own agency and across the wider industry, there are different principles that help:

• Communicate the why. Explain why the change matters beyond cost reduction or improving the bottom line.
• Involve people early. Employees closest to the work often know where technology or process change will genuinely make a difference.
• Create space. Protect time for people to learn, experiment and build new habits.
• Stop as well as start. If you introduce something new, be clear about what you can remove or simplify.
• Prioritise ruthlessly. Not every transformation initiative needs to happen at once.
• Use early adopters. Identify employees who embrace new ways of working and enable them to support their peers.
• Recognise the effort. Transformation creates additional cognitive and emotional load before it delivers benefits.
• Measure adoption, not launch. Judge success by whether behaviour and outcomes have changed, not whether a new platform has gone live.
• Keep listening. Employee feedback helps leaders distinguish genuine resistance from signs that the organisation is simply trying to absorb too much.

The agencies that succeed over the next few years will almost certainly look different from those that succeeded over the last decade. Roles will evolve. AI will remove some tasks and create others. Operating models will change, and commercial models will follow.

The agencies that thrive will not necessarily be those that change the fastest. They will be the ones that build the capacity with their teams to keep evolving.

Lisa Morgan is managing director at Generation Media. Read her monthly column for The Media Leader on the first Thursday of each month.