10.4 Barriers to Engagement
Key Takeaways
- Role overload means workloads overwhelm individuals' capacity, leading to low engagement
- Work-role conflicts arise from conflicting demands, often when multiple changes run simultaneously with no clear priorities
- Resource inadequacies occur when tasks are made harder by missing or defective equipment, out-of-date information or untrained staff
- Job security reflects how secure people feel about their place in the organisation, and confidence in it fosters psychological safety
- Sense of fairness concerns perceptions of fair procedures and treatment, and engagement increases with transparency about how decisions are made
Engagement is "the means by which an organization increases involvement of its employees and other stakeholders with organizational change" (Hodges, 2019). CM3 identifies five specific barriers to engagement and five principles that help build it. Both lists are examinable, and the barriers are examined by scenario — you are given a quoted complaint and asked which barrier it represents.
The five barriers
| Barrier | Definition |
|---|---|
| Role overload | There is too much work to do in the time available to complete it. Workloads are overwhelming the capacity of individuals to deal with them, leading to low engagement |
| Work-role conflicts | There are conflicting demands from different managers, leaders, colleagues or clients. Competing demands often occur when multiple changes are taking place simultaneously and there are no clear priorities |
| Resource inadequacies | Work tasks are made harder because of problems caused by missing or defective equipment, missing or out-of-date information, lack of properly-trained staff or other key resources |
| Job security | How secure people feel about their places within the organisation. Confidence in job security fosters a sense of psychological safety |
| Sense of fairness | Perceptions of fairness of procedures and how people are treated during change. Engagement increases when there is transparency around how decisions are made and a sense that people are being treated fairly |
Distinguishing overload from conflict
This is the distinction the exam tests most, and it is genuinely easy to confuse because both involve too much.
- Role overload is a volume problem: too much work for the time available. The person knows what to do; there is simply too much of it.
- Work-role conflicts is a priority problem: conflicting demands from different sources, with no clear priorities. The person does not know which work to do.
The diagnostic phrase: "I have so much work to do on multiple changes, I'm not sure what I should be focusing on first" is a work-role conflict. The giveaway is "not sure what I should be focusing on first" — that is a priority conflict, not a volume complaint. A pure overload complaint would be "there simply aren't enough hours to finish this".
The distinction matters practically because the remedies differ entirely. Overload is fixed by reducing work or extending time. Conflict is fixed by someone with authority setting the priority — which is a sponsor and line leader responsibility, and connects to the sponsor's obligation to ensure ongoing alignment with other organisational initiatives.
Each barrier and its remedy
| Barrier | What removes it |
|---|---|
| Role overload | Reduce scope, extend timescales, backfill capacity, sequence changes rather than running them concurrently |
| Work-role conflicts | Explicit prioritisation from someone with authority across the competing demands; portfolio-level sequencing |
| Resource inadequacies | Fix the equipment, update the information, train the staff — often unglamorous and often the cheapest available engagement win |
| Job security | Say what is known and what is not, as early as possible; where jobs are affected, say so honestly and set out the process |
| Sense of fairness | Transparent criteria, consistent application, and explaining how decisions were made rather than only what was decided |
The job security barrier deserves particular note because of its link to psychological safety: confidence in job security fosters a sense of psychological safety. Where job security is genuinely uncertain, silence is the worst option. People assume the worst in an information vacuum, and the assumed threat is usually larger than the real one.
The fairness barrier connects directly to SCARF's fairness domain — how equitably resources, time and attention are being shared — and to the finding that people react strongly to perceived unfairness even when the objective impact on them is small. The remedy is largely procedural: engagement increases with transparency around how decisions are made, which is often achievable even when the decisions themselves cannot be changed.
Principles that help build engagement
Alongside the barriers, CM3 lists five principles for building and maintaining engagement throughout the change:
- Inclusivity — involving the range of stakeholders rather than a convenient subset
- Connectivity — building the connections between people and groups that carry engagement
- Transparency — being open about what is happening, including what is not yet decided
- Dialogue — two-way exchange rather than broadcast
- Empathy — understanding stakeholders from their own point of view
These five are worth reading against the barriers: transparency addresses fairness and job security, dialogue addresses all five by surfacing them early, and empathy is what allows a change manager to recognise a barrier that a stakeholder has not stated directly.
Recognising barriers before they show as resistance
The practical value of this list is that these barriers frequently masquerade as resistance. A team that is not engaging with a change may not disagree with it at all — they may be overloaded, receiving conflicting priorities, lacking the equipment to do it, or anxious about their jobs. Diagnosing which barrier is operating before designing a persuasion intervention is one of the highest-return habits in stakeholder work, because four of the five barriers are removed by practical action rather than by communication.
A team lead is being asked by three different programmes to release the same staff in the same fortnight, and nobody has told her which programme takes precedence. Which barrier to engagement is this?
Why does CM3 connect the job security barrier to psychological safety?
A team is failing to adopt a new process because the equipment they were issued is faulty and the reference information is out of date. Which barrier to engagement is operating?