Introduction
In the modern workplace, big changes sometimes happen without lasting effect.
A system nobody uses is implemented, a restructure leaves everyone confused, or a culture initiative is introduced and then gradually phased out, having little to no influence on the company.
For HR leaders trying to reassure and support their employees, these situations are even more frustrating. Left unchecked, they can impact employee engagement, retention, and trust, leaving leaders to pick up the pieces.
Research shows that most change fails, with only about 30% of transformations delivering the expected results. It’s rarely because the idea was bad but because there was no real process behind it.
This is where Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model is especially useful, giving HR leaders an organised approach to managing teams across organisational change.
If you’re an HR professional responsible for people within your business, read on to discover what Kotter’s model is and how you can apply it to your practice when organisational change occurs, using real-life examples to guide your approach.
Kotter's 8-Step Change Model Explained
Developed by John Kotter, a Harvard Business School Professor, the change model first appeared in 1995 in a Harvard Business Review article, and Kotter later expanded it into his 1996 book, Leading Change.
Many change models exist to help leaders lead change that sticks. Kotter’s is one of the most used and most taught on CIPD courses.
The model itself is simple and breaks change into eight steps:
- Create a Sense of Urgency
- Build a Guiding Coalition
- Form a Strategic Vision
- Enlist a Volunteer Army
- Enable Action by Removing Barriers
- Generate Easy Wins
- Increase the Pace
- Institute Change
Each step establishes support and reduces resistance, so change actually lasts and becomes a normal part of a company’s everyday processes.
What sets it apart from other change models is its origin: Kotter took an evidence-based approach, studied over 100 companies going through major change, and built the model on what actually worked, not theory alone.
Here is how the eight steps break down, with a practical HR relevant example for each:
Step 1: Create a Sense of Urgency
People will not support change until they understand why it matters.
For HR leaders, this means developing a clear argument for change using an evidence-based approach. Rather than simply telling employees change needs to happen, HR can use real data to show the impact of retaining the status quo.
HR Example: An HR manager notices turnover increasing in one department over two quarters. Rather than raising a vague concern in a meeting, they pull together the exit interview data and turnover figures. That evidence becomes the opening case they take straight to senior leadership to support their claim that action is needed.
Step 2: Build a Guiding Coalition
Change rarely works through one person’s effort alone.
For HR leaders, this means bringing together people who can influence and support the change across an organisation. This should go beyond senior leadership to include people who understand how the change might affect employees day to day.
HR Example: When a medium-sized firm decides to overhaul its performance review process, the Human Resources director avoids announcing it from the top down. Instead, they bring in two department heads and a well-respected team member who openly disliked the old system. This gave the change more credibility with the people most likely to push back.
Step 3: Form a Strategic Vision
People need to picture what the change actually looks like, not just hear that it is happening.
For HR leaders, this means translating an objective across the organisation into something more tangible that employees can understand and see themselves as being a part of. A common vision should clarify the desired outcome rather than rely on vague statements about transformation or modernisation.
HR Example: “We are modernising our systems” tells staff nothing useful. A better version sounds like this: “Leave approvals currently take five working days, and under the new system, they get approved the same day they are submitted.” That is a vision people can actually picture themselves benefiting from.
Step 4: Get Team Members to Volunteer
Widen support beyond leadership so the change feels shared, not imposed.
For HR leaders, this means giving employees opportunities to get immersed, provide feedback, and become key advocates for the change. People respond to influence and are more likely to support the new way of working when it’s introduced this way.
HR Example: Before rolling out a new scheduling system across the organisation, HR invites employees from different departments to trial it for two weeks. Their feedback supports and guides the final rollout, and those early testers become familiar with the system and can support other employees when it’s introduced more widely across the company.
Step 5: Enable Action by Removing Barriers
Identify what is actually slowing people down and address it directly, rather than assuming it is simply resistance.
For HR leaders, this means looking beyond whether employees appear willing to enact change and recognising barriers that may prevent them from doing so. These barriers would be a lack of training, unclear processes, limited resources, or concerns about how the change will affect their role.
HR Example: A retail chain rolling out a new till system finds several store managers avoiding it. HR reviews the problem, rather than initially treating this as a rejection of change, and discovers that the managers have not been shown how the new system works. One afternoon of hands-on training removes a barrier that months of reminder emails had failed to address.
Step 6: Generate Short-Term Wins
Long-term change needs early, visible proof that it is working, or momentum stalls.
For HR leaders, short-term successes provide evidence that change is having the intended effect on the organisation. By sharing these results with employees, HR maintains engagement and secures ongoing support from senior leadership.
HR Example: One month after introducing the new onboarding process, the HR team compares how long new starters take to get up to speed. The figure has since dropped by a third. Sharing this result with employees across the organisation gives leadership clear evidence that the new approach is successful and gives employees real evidence to keep using it.
Step 7: Sustain Acceleration
Do not declare victory after the first win. Use that early momentum to push into the harder phase that follows.
For HR leaders, this means using evidence from early successes to sustain momentum and keep improving the change over time. Treat a successful pilot or initial improvement as evidence for what comes next, not a reason to stop.
HR Example: After a successful pilot of a new employee development programme in one department, HR uses the results to identify what worked, address outstanding issues, and plan the next stage of the programme rollout. Instead of treating the pilot as the finished project, HR uses its success to build support for wider or organisational change.
Step 8: Institute Change
Embed the change properly, or it survives only as long as people remember to keep doing it.
For HR leaders, this means embedding the new approach in the organisation’s everyday processes, policies, and expectations. The aim is to make the change continuous rather than a one-off, even after the initial project ends.
HR Example: A new onboarding process has been running successfully for six months. The HR team stops treating it as a temporary project and builds it into the organisation’s standard processes. This means rewriting the induction process manual, updating the manager’s checklist and making the new process part of every new starter’s first week at the company. With time, this new approach becomes the normal way of working rather than something employees need constant reminders to follow.
How to Manage Employees & Lead Teams Effectively Through Change
Not Just a Human Resource Topic
Like a lot of models in HR, Kotter’s 8-Step Model stops being just a human resource topic the moment you actually apply it in practice.
Any HR professional in a position of power will be affected by change, and it’s important to understand how to manage it using helpful tools like Kotter’s to guide your teams through the process.
Even procedures that might not appear to be related to human resources, such as a line manager rolling out a new process, a project lead pushing a new tool across their group, or a department head merging two teams, are doing the exact job that Kotter describes.
HR designs the framework, but managers and leaders live it day to day with their teams, which is what makes Kotter’s model so useful.
At some point, HR managers, team leaders, and CIPD candidates, who may be leaders themselves, all end up applying the same eight steps in practice.
Kotter’s Model can also be applied on a smaller scale, such as in everyday employee management processes.
Even if a process needs support from across an organisation, and not just a major transformation, the same principles apply.
Why This Matters for CIPD Candidates
For CIPD candidates, this matters even more.
Kotter’s model sits directly inside the CIPD Level 5 Associate Diploma. That unit covers models of organisational behaviour, alongside the drivers for change.
As a CIPD candidate, you will be expected to apply the model to a real workplace situation you have actually seen. Simply describing the eight steps doesn’t count as analysis; you need to apply them.
When to Use Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model
When to apply Kotter’s 8-step change model depends on scale; it was designed for changes big enough to need significant support across a team or organisation, not small, one-off tweaks that affect only a few people.
These changes might be:
- New system rollouts
- Company restructures
- Shift in company policy
Getting people on board can make a big difference in whether these changes work, and Kotter’s model is a good place to start.
Below are some examples of where Kotter’s model would be a useful tool in HR practice:
Knowing the theory behind Kotter’s 8-step change model is one thing, but understanding how actually to use it is just as important.
Don’t skip straight to the part that feels most exciting; implement it properly from the start, and focus on getting the sequence right by working through all the steps in order.
You might think jumping ahead to short-term wins builds success, but failing to generate real urgency and build a coalition at the start is one of the most common reasons change efforts stall.
What Kotter’s Model Looks Like When Implemented Well
When applied properly, there are a few signs that indicate the model is working:
- Employees engage more readily when they understand the reasoning behind a change, not just the instruction to follow it.
- Retention tends to improve too. Badly handled change is a common reason people start job hunting long before anyone in HR notices.
- Trust builds when leaders communicate honestly and actually follow through on what they said.
- When people see early wins for themselves, rather than just hearing about them, momentum increases.
Real Applications: Kotter's 8-Step Change Model Examples
These Kotter’s 8-step change model examples show the framework in practice in real HR teams managing different kinds of change:
1. An HR Manager Rolling Out a Brand New System
Staff keep skipping a new leave-request portal and still email their manager directly, months after launch.
Instead of another reminder email, the HR manager pulls the numbers. They show leadership exactly how much time the old process costs each month. That builds urgency.
A few team leads start by trialling the new portal, ironing out the confusing bits and becoming informal advocates. They then share early adoption numbers with the wider team to build momentum.
2. A Team Leader Merging Two Departments
People feel uneasy about what a merger means for them. Rumours fill the silence.
Instead of one vague announcement, the team leader has individual conversations early. People hear directly what is changing, and why, from someone they trust.
When a few employees raise real concerns about losing certain shift patterns, the leader works with them on a fair transition, rather than brushing it off.
3. A CIPD Candidate Applying It to an Assignment
A weak assignment lists all eight steps in order and calls that analysis.
A strong one picks a real scenario, a change the candidate has actually seen, and evaluates which steps worked and which did not. That is what markers actually want to see.
4. A Senior Leader Driving a Company-Wide Change
A director wants a new way of working adopted across every department, not just one team.
Rather than mandating it from the top, the leader first builds a coalition of managers from each area.
Each manager becomes the trusted voice for their own team, so the message arrives as something led by people staff already know, not a memo from someone they rarely see.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Kotter's Model
You might know the theory behind the eight steps and understand what they are, but that is not the same as using them well.
Implementing this model takes practice, and mistakes are often made at work and in CIPD assignments when the model moves from theory to application.
Here are a few of the most common errors picked directly from actual scenarios to help you foresee possible mistakes before they happen:
- Rushing to short-term wins before building urgency: It’s tempting to skip straight to something visible. Without real urgency and a coalition behind it first, that early win has nothing to build on, and the momentum dies as fast as it appeared.
- Treating urgency as a single announcement: One meeting explaining why change is needed is not urgency – it is an event. Real urgency needs repeating, through evidence and conversations, until people actually believe it.
- Building a coalition only from senior leadership: A group of directors looks strong on paper, but if none of them has credibility with the people affected, the coalition changes little on the ground. Include the informal influencers too, not just the job titles.
- Declaring success too early: After an initial win, it can be tempting to treat the change as complete, but it isn’t. Step 7 exists because early wins are a checkpoint, not the finish line. Stopping here is one of the most common ways that change efforts can collapse.
- Skipping Step 8 entirely: If the change never gets written into policy, onboarding, or how performance gets measured, it survives only as long as people remember to keep doing it – that is usually not very long.
Where the Model Falls Short
It’s important to realise that no framework is perfect, which is exactly why it’s worth knowing the gaps before you rely on it.
Real change rarely happens in a straight line, which Kotter’s model assumes. Sometimes steps overlap, stall, and need revisiting in a completely different order.
There’s additionally the emotional side of change – the anxiety and resistance that comes with it – that Kotter’s model doesn’t necessarily consider.
The Kübler-Ross change curve addresses some of these issues, especially in a fast-moving or agile workplace, where an eight-step sequence can feel too rigid to keep up with.
Kotter’s model also assumes a fairly stable organisation underneath the change itself. If the business is already going through constant disruption, layering an eight-step process on top can feel like one more thing to manage, rather than the structure that makes the rest easier.
To manage this, treat Kotter’s model as one strong tool in a wider toolkit of approaches to change, not the only answer for every kind of transformation.
Key Takeaways
Kotter’s model is a practical way to stop change from dissolving after launch.
Whether you lead a team, work in HR, or are studying for a CIPD qualification, the same rule applies to each: change persists when the process behind it is deliberate, not just when the idea is good.
If you are building these skills properly, our CIPD Level 5 course covers this kind of applied change management. People who have used it well don’t just read about it; they also teach it with real examples.
Explore all of HRC’s CIPD courses and find the right one for where you’re headed.
