The Great Flattening in 2026: Life After the Middle Manager Layer

Opublikowano: 2026-10-05

Episode 404: The Squeezed Middle 🔗 Read the full article here: https://smartkeys.org/great-flattening-middle-managers/ In this episode of the SmartKeys podcast, we examine a seismic structural reorganization taking place across modern business: the Great Flattening. Over the last few years, corporate leadership has aggressively thinned out the middle management layer. Gusto payroll data shows that managers dropped from 25% of the US workforce in 2019 to roughly 15% by late 2024, while manager hiring tumbled 40% below 2022 levels. Based on the research guide by Felix Römer, we explore what happens to an organization when the neck of the corp...