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It's a really bad time to be a middle manager
- Businesses have been engaged in restructuring of their corporate hierarchies, waging war on middle managers since the past two years, trimming an entire tier of supervisory jobs in the name of 'flattening'. The jobs themselves have been eliminated, and they may not be coming back. Hiring had plunged by 43% for middle managers and 57% for senior leaders. There's a sharp spike in job seekers, and they're competing for an increasingly small universe of open roles.
- In response, many displaced managers have swallowed their pride and started applying to jobs lower on the corporate food chain. But take the example of a former middle manager who is 54 years old. After getting rejected for all the supervisory jobs he could find, he widened his search to include entry-level positions—only to be rejected for being overqualified.
- The very experience that should be a selling point for senior leaders has become a liability. Some have tried deleting former jobs from their resumes, to hide their supervisory experience. Others omit the year they graduated from college. The rung of the corporate ladder they spent their careers reaching could be gone for good.
- Over the past year, more than 30% of layoffs were middle managers, compared with 20% in 2019. Companies appear to have no intention of refilling those supervisory roles.
- The assault on middle managers dates back to the 1980s, when globalization gave rise to a new philosophy of management that prioritized cost cutting over everything else. But it's unclear whether getting rid of middle managers actually made companies run more efficiently.
- Executives got the flattening that they wanted. But it's unclear whether getting rid of middle managers actually made companies run more efficiently. But study after study found that when middle managers do their jobs right, they bolster performance more than either top executives or ground-level employees.
- The best hope for managers is that CEOs are getting a real-time refresher in the value of managers.
- The supervisors who survived the purge have been forced to take on much larger teams, and they're burned out to a crisp. Departments are more siloed than ever, with no one to do the tedious and thankless and essential work of coordinating across different teams.
- The current craze for corporate flattening could ease over time. Companies are already discovering that having few middle managers is placing an enormous strain on their operations.
- There's a chance, of course, that the current craze for corporate flattening could ease over time. Gen Zers, deprived of their mentors, are increasingly disengaged. The best hope for managers is that CEOs are getting a real-time refresher in the value of managers.
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