What’s Trending: The Great Flattening
July 15, 2025
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How would the workplace look without managers? In the last few years, managers have faced a completely different workplace dynamic, from being empowered by the Great Recession to now facing job cuts that threaten their jobs. Ever since 2023, we’ve seen big companies change their structure, leading to the Great Flattening.
Read this mini to see if experts think that middle management going away is a good move or just a short-term solution.
In the first half of 2024, an ugly trend had people reeling: big layoffs at big tech companies. In 2025, this wasn’t the attitude, but it left a precedent that has companies wondering if middle management is even necessary for their goals. Check out what Russel Pearlman has to say about it in a piece for Korn Ferry.
For years, managers have been sandwiched between their teams and leadership’s wants and needs. This has meant that they’re constantly trying to balance what can be done and what needs to be done. As such, they’re known for struggling with burnout at higher rates than other employees, even good managers.
During the aforementioned 2024 layoffs, managers made up 29% of the eliminated cutbacks, and ever since 2022, job postings for this level have been down by 40%. This brings us to what the media is calling the Great Flattening. This can be described as the movement to eliminate middle management positions, aiming to undercut bureaucracy, improve communications between leadership and their teams, and cut costs. Some big companies argue that AI can even do the functions of managers.
“Experts are calling it an historic shift in company org charts at a time when trade wars and inflation are looming.”
Pearlman reports that experts don’t really agree with this measure. This kind of desperate measure can be counterproductive, with the role of managers falling only to the few who remain. This will probably increase the responsibility with no additional compensation and multiply the probability of burning out. It can also mean that there is little direction for teams and projects, ultimately leading to communication issues.
In an article by Brian Robinson, PhD, he breaks down for Forbes how this move has been festering for a while, and how it’s still a coin up in the air whether this will help or harm companies.
So, is middle management going away? Possibly. Big US companies like the pharmaceuticals Bayer and Novartis have already begun cutting middle management jobs in a move that was previously named The Great Unbossing but has now been coined The Great Flattening. The idea is to allow employees to manage themselves as a restructuring of the hierarchy that was established during the Industrial Revolution. This is an attempt to modernize for the digital age, where employees’ work can be tracked instantaneously through different tools and platforms.
Except that tracking isn’t so easy, as managers tend to do that as part of their tasks. This can be part of the lead-up to micromanagement, which has made Gen Z abhor their team leaders or project management. As such, Gen Z, a generation that has been puzzling companies and corporate America with their nonchalance towards the traditional career, actually agrees with the measure of cutting out middle management altogether. According to a poll conducted last year, 69% of Gen Z involved consider management to be a high-stress, low-reward path, and 72% would rather be on a path of personal growth over a management role.
“Without support and guidance from experienced managers, employees will lack clarity, direction and a path for professional growth—ultimately impacting productivity and business output.”
Still, Joe Galvin, chief research officer of Vistage, and Jamie Aitken, vice president of HR transformation at Betterworks, both concur that though this might be a popular solution, it’s shortsighted. Employee morale, engagement, strategy, and ultimately, productivity might all fall into the gap created by the vacancy of management, who were put there, in the first place, to avoid that from happening.
But is there any real justification on the business side of things? In an article by Business Insider, Allie Kelly dives into why middle managers can’t catch a break from all sides. From tech, like Google, Intel, and Amazon, to retail, like Wayfair and Walmart, mid-career employees seem to find themselves being hunted and on the hunt for new opportunities.
The biggest players, the economy, and the federal government have fanned the flames of workplace efficiency. With the proposed tariff plan, companies are fearing a recession, increasing their prices, and cutting costs wherever they can to prepare. In 2023, Mark Zuckerberg began the flattening with the Meta layoffs, saying “flatter is better” when it comes to the org. This rolled on to Amazon’s 2024 layoffs, according to its CEO, Andy Jassy.
Now, what was the middle managers’ cardinal sin? Daniel Zhao, the lead economist at Glassdoor, theorizes that this is the natural progression of things after the pandemic. Back then, companies experienced a surge in personnel, which naturally meant that they needed more people to train and manage the new hires, leading to promotions and management ranks to retain or hire high-performers during the Great Resignation.
The problem, according to companies, is that this decision hasn’t panned out. In the current climate, hiring is slowing down, and now there is a big chunk of high-salaried management who are just not training or managing new people, but they have failed to engage employees, leading to the Great Detachment.
“This trend also creates bunching down at the bottom of the career ladder.”
The problems trickle down, Zhao hypothesizes. As former managers have to compete for roles that they wouldn’t have looked at before, blocking entry-level or experienced hires from moving up or joining the career ladder.
Companies are responding and preparing to respond to the economic climate. The strategies that gave employees the upper hand back in 2020 have now backfired and overcorrected, with mid-level employees having to bear the brunt of it. Middle management, in the eyes of many, has failed to meet certain goals, with disengagement hitting an all-time high several quarters in a row, leading them to the cutting block.
Now, there is another problem at hand, as correcting this will undoubtedly create more issues with entry-level job seekers or experienced workers. They will not only be blocked from opportunities, but the chance to rise in their careers might just not exist, as promotions, direction, and advancement are currently being greatly diminished.
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