As businesses across industries embrace a culture of continuous improvement and digital transformation, the way teams approach organizational change increasingly impacts a business’s ability to survive and thrive.
Change management is the systematic process encompassing planning for and executing large-scale projects like software implementation or process optimization. Change management centers on coordinating smaller processes to pull together large-scale change and ensure continuity of business processes along the way.
However, change management’s intense focus on protocols and logistics, as well as linear change, can create gaps in employee support and the benefits of iterative approaches to improvement. In fact, a 2023 report by Oak Engage showed that over 20% of employees feel excluded from change-related decision-making, and over 40% feel that their workplace is ill-prepared to effectively manage change.
Change enablement, on the other hand, takes change management to the next level with a greater focus on supporting employees through change and embracing continuous improvement.
In this article, we will explain the benefits of change enablement and how it differs from traditional change management, explain how digital adoption platforms can enhance change enablement activities, and provide best practices for using a digital adoption platform for your company’s change enablement plans.
What Is Change Enablement?
Change enablement is the strategic management of organizational change with an emphasis on keeping employees and other stakeholders informed and supported from start to finish. This creates an environment of transparency and shared responsibility that lends itself to continuous, company-wide growth and improvement.
Change enablement shifts the framing from an obligatory management of change to an empowering enablement of transformation. Inherent to change enablement is a focus on support that helps organically alleviate resistance to change and encourages employees to fully embrace organizational change, leading to more successful project outcomes and a more engaged workforce overall.
Change Enablement vs. Change Management: Key Differences
Although the terms change enablement and change management are often used interchangeably, they represent different but complementary approaches. Change management focuses on the structured processes and governance required to lead an organization through transformation, while change enablement emphasizes empowering people with the tools, communication, and support they need to adopt change successfully.
Understanding how these two approaches differ is critical for CIOs, transformation leaders, and HR teams to design strategies that not only plan for change but also ensure it is embraced at every level. The table below highlights the key differences.
| Change Enablement | Change Management |
| Focus on providing support and tools to empower employees through transitions | Focus on developing and deploying a structured plan for business changes |
| Dynamic, employee-centric approach | Top-down approach |
| Goals center on adoption, long-term transformation, and stakeholder experience | Goals center on facilitating change to improve business outcomes and minimize disruptions |
| Emphasis on support, communication, and agility | Emphasis on structure, standardization, and practicality |
Internal Barriers to Change Enablement
Every business has unique challenges when it comes to organizational change. From employee resistance to change to disorganized strategies to lack of resources, obstacles abound. Change enablement empowers leaders to strategically counteract these obstacles to smooth out the transformation process and make change more digestible for everyone involved.
Here are some of the most commonly encountered barriers to change enablement across organizations:
- Resistance from employees and middle managers: Employees tend to prefer their own way of doing things, especially if they’ve been doing it for years on end. Without adequate communication from management about what is changing and why, and without adequate training and support through the change process, there can be a great deal of hesitancy.
- Siloed communication and lack of visibility: Without proper change communication and ample opportunities for feedback, issues that arise during change projects can become siloed, causing them to remain unaddressed or even escalate. If issues fester, you are likely to encounter declining employee experience and loyalty, leading to even bigger problems down the line.
- One-size-fits-all training models: When employees are required to engage with training activities that don’t match their needs and learning styles, they tend to disengage and lose out on valuable learning opportunities. Without a workforce full of engaged learners, adoption of new software and processes becomes impossible and brings the ROI of change investments down to zero.
- Inconsistent rollout across business units or global teams: When messaging, instruction, or support is delivered inconsistently across teams, it can cause discomfort and lead to a sense of distrust between employees and their managers or employers. If unaddressed, this can lead to friction between teams and between managers and direct reports.
- Over-reliance on static documentation and helpdesks: In years past, change projects like new software implementation may have been paired with in-person training and a hefty manual for reference purposes. These traditional approaches to technical support lack the personalization and timeliness to secure full user adoption and achieve optimal ROI on transformation investments.
Why Change Enablement Is Essential for Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is essential for staying competitive and keeping operations running smoothly. However, transformation projects are only effective if employees understand the value of changes and opt into adopting them.
Change enablement puts employee experience and change adoption at the center of change management, improving transformation outcomes from every angle. Here are some of the most important benefits of change enablement:
- Increasing technology complexity, faster release cycles: By focusing on the human aspects of change projects, change enablement helps employees build confidence and develop the agility necessary to engage in continuous learning and the openness required to thrive through workplace transitions.
- Greater need for self-sufficiency among employees: As industries transform, job roles involve more specialization, creating a heightened need for personalized support and thorough adoption of all new tools and processes. Change enablement helps leaders provide the resources employees need to reach their full potential.
- Supports compliance, governance, and agility: Change enablement helps teams cultivate a culture of competence, ensuring that employees are not only willing, but eager to perform tasks according to adopting new processes and perform tasks according to best practices, and regulations.
- Builds user confidence and reduces resistance: Change enablement’s emphasis on employee experience promotes continuous learning and self-propelled adoption. This instills employees with a sense of confidence and eagerness to grow along with the organization.
- Reinforces organizational resilience during disruption: As industries evolve, individual organizations are subject to never-ending waves of change. Change enablement promotes a sense of continuous improvement that helps employees at all levels develop an agile mindset to keep businesses afloat through big changes.
The Role of a Digital Adoption Platform in Change Enablement
A digital adoption platform is a software that allows teams to embed contextual guidance within the interfaces of workplace applications to help users learn how to navigate tools and learn new workflows. DAPs provide the real-time, personalized support that makes change enablement possible. Here are some of the most important DAP features for effective change enablement in your next digital transformation project:
In-App Guidance Across Critical Workflows
Traditional training depends on employees remembering hours of content long after a session ends. Whatfix brings training into the flow of work by delivering step-by-step, interactive guidance inside applications like ERP, HCM, and CRM systems. Guidance is triggered contextually based on user activity, ensuring that employees always know the next step in a process, even during complex transitions.
Outcome: Faster onboarding, fewer errors, and seamless adoption of new systems and workflows.
Role- and Process-Based Personalization
Change isn’t one-size-fits-all. With Whatfix, leaders can personalize learning by role, team, or process. A sales rep sees workflows relevant to CRM opportunities, while HR sees guidance for onboarding employees. This ensures every user receives the most relevant support, keeping them engaged and accelerating time to proficiency.
Outcome: Personalized adoption journeys that reduce resistance and increase confidence.
Change Communication in the Flow of Work
Email blasts and training decks are easy to ignore. Whatfix allows change teams to deliver targeted pop-ups, banners, and nudges directly in the applications employees use daily. Whether it’s a new compliance requirement, tool migration update, or policy change, employees stay informed without disrupting their workflow.
Outcome: Consistent, timely communication that keeps employees aligned and engaged.
Self-Help Embedded Into Applications
Adoption stalls when employees can’t find answers. Whatfix embeds a self-help hub within enterprise applications, surfacing FAQs, process documents, videos, and policies at the exact moment of need. Users resolve their own issues instantly, reducing dependency on IT or HR helpdesks.
Outcome: Lower support ticket volumes, higher user confidence, and stronger adoption rates.
Behavior Analytics and Feedback Loops
Change enablement isn’t complete without measurement. Whatfix provides robust analytics to track how employees interact with applications, where they struggle, and where adoption drops off. Leaders can also capture real-time feedback from users to pinpoint areas of resistance.
Outcome: Continuous optimization of change programs with data-driven insights.
Simulated Practice Environments with Whatfix Mirror
One of the biggest barriers to change is fear of making mistakes in live systems. With Whatfix Mirror, L&D teams can clone enterprise applications to create a simulated environment where employees can safely explore, practice, and learn. This sandbox environment boosts confidence, improves retention, and prepares employees even before rollout.
Outcome: Risk-free, hands-on practice that accelerates adoption and minimizes disruption.
Real-World Example: Whatfix DAP in Action
Cardinal Health Canada, a multinational healthcare services company, used Whatfix DAP to create self-help and in-app guidance as it prepared for its website and ordering portal launch.
Cardinal Health incorporated in-app guidance into the portal to facilitate IT self-service for things like resetting passwords and creating new accounts, quickly lowering the number of support requests upon launch.
They created interactive walkthroughs for over 50 FAQs to help visitors resolve their own issues quickly and used Whatfix Self Help to deliver links to related documentation, like knowledge base articles and video tutorials. Ultimately, 45% of users surveyed rated the Cardinal Health website’s Self Help as excellent, demonstrating the power of a DAP to supercharge user adoption and improve customer relationships around the clock.
Step-by-Step Framework to Enable Organizational Change
Every change project is unique, but this framework includes the essential steps for enabling users to navigate and embrace organizational change:
- Stakeholder buy-in and communication planning: Begin each change project by presenting its potential benefits and impact on the organization to key stakeholders. Make plans for communicating these details, plus timelines and other relevant information, to employees ahead of the project start date. This will ensure that stakeholders are prepared to support the project and that employees feel included as things move forward.
- Digital journey mapping and role segmentation: In the initial stages of planning, determine how employees in different roles will use a new application and map out detailed digital journeys for each one. Incorporate these roles into support content and use a DAP like Whatfix to deliver relevant training content to the right users at the right time.
- Pilot & soft launch with UAT feedback: Iteration is key. Select a small group of users to help test different aspects of your new software and generate feedback ahead of a large-scale rollout. This will ensure fewer issues on launch and save your IT team from a wave of support requests if there are more details to be ironed out.
- Enable in-workflow support at launch: Incorporate a DAP like Whatfix into your software rollout as soon as your employees begin interacting with it to ensure they receive the support they need to adopt it quickly and correctly.
- Monitor behavior, gather feedback, optimize: Use smart data analytics tools to observe how employees interact with their new software and workflows, solicit qualitative feedback, and use this data to continually optimize software configurations and change enablement practices.
- Institutionalize ongoing change enablement: Make change enablement a central aspect of every change project to build a culture of continuous learning and keep employees feeling engaged and supportive, even in the face of constantly evolving internal processes.
Change Enablement FAQs
What is the difference between change enablement and change management?
- Change management is a top-down approach to carrying out organizational change. This approach is focused on processes and business continuity, rather than personalized support and iterative change.
- Change enablement is a more proactive strategy to implement change that involves employees in the transition process and supports them through rollout and adoption.
What are examples of change enablement tools?
Change teams can utilize a variety of different platforms to manage planning, implementation, and adoption support associated with transformation projects:
- Digital Adoption Platforms
- IT Service Management Tools
- Collaboration software
- Project Management Platforms
How does a digital adoption platform support change enablement?
Digital adoption platforms live within workplace software and deploy relevant, timely support content to users as they navigate new features and workflows. A DAP like Whatfix makes it easy for change leaders to provide employees with contextual guidance, personalized support, feedback opportunities, and data-informed insights – all the data and support necessary to promote successful adoption of new workplace software and digital processes.
What are the benefits of change enablement for large enterprises?
Large-scale organizations have sizable, diverse workforces that operate from many different locations. Change enablement helps establish a culture of learning and agility across the entire workforce, building a stronger sense of community across teams and entities.
Incorporating a digital adoption platform like Whatfix can enhance change enablement for large enterprises by incorporating content catered to various personas across the company’s employee base, ensuring that all team members feel supported and engaged through change projects.
Change Clicks Better With Whatfix
Change empowerment is the key to digital transformation, and it hinges on achieving full user adoption. The Whatfix Digital Adoption Platform can supercharge your change enablement efforts and empower employees with intuitive, timely support as they navigate transitions.
Whatfix DAP uses in-app training prompts like Flows, Task Lists, Pop-ups, and more to help users learn within the flow of work. It also enables personalized learning through smart content deployment for timely delivery and opportunities for self-directed support with Self Help.
Whatfix Mirror lets L&D teams and managers create interactive test environments of new software for the ultimate digital hands-on learning experience with no risk of impacting live data or operations.
Whatfix Analytics helps teams track in-app user behavior to optimize understanding of how employees use new software. From there, leaders can identify pain points and determine how to continue optimizing workflows and training content for even better usability.
Ready to learn more about Whatfix and change enablement? Request a demo with us today!
