The Great Flattening is here to stay(businessinsider.com)
businessinsider.com
The Great Flattening is here to stay
https://www.businessinsider.com/middle-manager-hiring-white-collar-recession-layoffs-jobs-efficiency-2024-12
4 comments
https://web.archive.org/web/20241202103437/https://www.busin...
"Flattening" organizations by removing middle managers? That could work.
Middle managers are there because it's difficult for one manager to be able to communicate effectively with that many workers. But you could maybe pull it off if you had better communication... or better technology to enable communication.
So, do we or don't we? We've got all these fancy technologies to help us communicate, but do we actually communicate more effectively? More effectively in a way that lets one manager adequately control more workers? (Note well the word "adequately". Sure, you can blast an email at 100 underlings just as easily as at 5. That's not enough to be adequate communication for a manager, though.)
I predict that a few organizations will pull it off, and the majority who try it will fail.
Middle managers are there because it's difficult for one manager to be able to communicate effectively with that many workers. But you could maybe pull it off if you had better communication... or better technology to enable communication.
So, do we or don't we? We've got all these fancy technologies to help us communicate, but do we actually communicate more effectively? More effectively in a way that lets one manager adequately control more workers? (Note well the word "adequately". Sure, you can blast an email at 100 underlings just as easily as at 5. That's not enough to be adequate communication for a manager, though.)
I predict that a few organizations will pull it off, and the majority who try it will fail.
This is a good point (the "could work if comm tech is good enough"). We can't forget that some management is things like "how do I reset my password", "how much vacation do I have left", which is all totally automatable IF YOU BOTHER TO FO IT. Most places do not, in my experience, even if they could.
If companies "flatten" and do not automate as much as possible, they will just overlap the managers remaining with trivial interruptions.
If companies "flatten" and do not automate as much as possible, they will just overlap the managers remaining with trivial interruptions.
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