I have worked with thousands of people through technology and process changes over two decades. And I have never, not once, met someone whose resistance to change was irrational once I understood what was behind it.
The narrative that resistance to change is a character flaw, that resistant people are lazy, difficult, or stuck in the past, is not just wrong. It is actively harmful, because it leads organisations to respond with pressure and mandates instead of the understanding and support that would actually help.
Resistant people are usually rational people who are worried about something specific. Find out what that specific thing is, address it honestly, and the resistance usually resolves, or transforms into something more productive, like useful feedback about what needs to change in the implementation plan.
What people are actually worried about
In my experience, resistance to technology and process change comes from a small number of underlying concerns, which are consistent across industries, cultures, and seniority levels.
"I am going to look incompetent." This is particularly common among people who are competent and respected in their current role. They have built expertise with the existing system and existing process. The change threatens to reset them to beginner status in front of their colleagues and reports. The worry is not about the technology, it is about status and self-respect.
"I am going to lose my job." When automation or efficiency improvements are announced, the implicit message some people hear is that their role is being made redundant. If this is not addressed directly, with honesty, not reassurance, the concern does not go away. It goes underground and becomes passive non-compliance.
"This will make my actual job harder." Sometimes the people who appear to be resisting a change are the ones who most clearly understand a genuine problem with it. They know that the new system does not account for a particular exception that happens in their work. They know that the proposed process does not work in their specific context. Their resistance is informed, and it deserves a serious response.
"Nobody asked me." People who were not involved in designing a change feel less ownership of it. This is not unreasonable. If someone changed the layout of your kitchen without asking you, you would feel some resistance too, even if the new layout was objectively better.
"Before you try to change someone's behaviour, understand what the behaviour is protecting them from."
What does not work
Mandates do not work. You can make compliance compulsory, but you cannot make genuine adoption compulsory. People who are forced to use a system they do not believe in will find ways to comply technically while working around it in practice. They will log in and do the minimum. They will enter inaccurate data. They will run parallel processes on spreadsheets.
Generic reassurance does not work. Telling people that change is good, that the new system is better, that they will get used to it, this does not address anyone's specific concern. It signals that their concerns have not been heard.
Ignoring the resistant people does not work. The natural instinct in many implementations is to focus energy on the willing majority and wait for the resistant minority to come around. What usually happens instead is that the resistant minority's behaviour influences the majority, and adoption stagnates.
What does work
Talk to resistant people directly, individually, and early. Not in a group setting where they may feel defensive. A one-to-one conversation, genuinely curious about what they are worried about. Not to persuade, to understand. The understanding comes first, the persuasion (if necessary) comes later.
Address the specific concern, not the general resistance. If someone is worried about looking incompetent, design their support structure accordingly: additional training time, a trusted person they can ask questions without embarrassment, a period of parallel running. If someone knows about a genuine problem with the proposed approach, take the problem seriously and fix it if they are right.
Give people a meaningful role in the change. People who are identified as key users, super users, or champions, and who are given a genuine role in shaping how the change is implemented in their team, tend to become advocates rather than resistors. This is not manipulation. It is recognition that their knowledge and influence are assets to the implementation.
Be honest about what you do not know. Trust in a change process is built by honesty, not by presenting a polished facade of certainty. If you do not yet know whether roles will change, say so. If there are aspects of the implementation that are not yet decided, say so. People are significantly more willing to accept uncertainty when they trust they are being told the truth.
A specific note on older employees
I work with a lot of manufacturing and industrial organisations, where the workforce often has a significant proportion of people who are older and less comfortable with technology. The approach I have described above applies, but the specific concerns tend to be more pronounced, and the support needs to be more structured.
In my experience, what this group needs most is not more training. It is more time, more patience, and more visible permission to learn at their own pace without judgment. They often learn by doing, with a trusted colleague nearby rather than in a formal training session. And they need to see that the organisation values their experience, not just their ability to adopt the new tool.
The organisations that handle this well treat older employees not as a change management problem to be managed, but as experienced practitioners whose knowledge of current processes is genuinely valuable, because it is.
If any of this resonates with a challenge you are facing, I would be happy to have a direct conversation. No commitment, no agenda.