“How many managers to have – What are the advantages and disadvantages of managers?” The question was asked in Mark Zuckerberg almost two years ago during an interview with the Podcaster Lex Fridman.
At the time, the meta -PDG – always sporting its “Caesar haircut” Caesar – launched the “Great Flattening” trend, eliminating intermediate managers in the middle of its “year of efficiency” as a correction to overcome the pandemic.
But while businesses beyond Big Tech, the last being the Tinder owner’s owner group, Pare Back Managerial Roles, Zuckerberg’s answer to the podcaster’s question in June 2023 remains relevant – and helps to explain why CEOs continue to clarify the management ranks.
The Facebook founder began by recognizing that managers are an important element of a company like Meta.
“I believe in management a lot,” he said. “I think there are people who think it doesn’t matter as much, but look, we have a lot of young people in the business. For them, it’s their first work, and people have to grow and learn in their careers.”
Zuckerberg said there was a “mathematical way” that he thought of the employees’ ratio with managers and cuts.
Before Meta’s layoffs, Zuckerberg said he had asked questions about the average number of direct reports that each manager had in the company and learned that he was about three to four. He said he thought it should look more like seven to eight. The lower figures made sense at the time, said Zuckerberg, while Meta hired a ton and helped new arrivals to accelerate.
“So, in a world where we do not add so many people so quickly, is it so precious to have many managers who have an additional capacity awaiting new people? No, right?” Said Zuckerberg.
He said that he had decided to “defragment the organization”, slimming the ranks of intermediate management, which “decreases latency on the information that rises and descend the chain and I think that people empower more”.
Everything has increased to a leaner organization which, according to him, could evolve more quickly in decision -making and execution.
Elsewhere in the interview, Zuckerberg mentioned that the cuts had come at a moment of uncertainty in the world. While companies are sailing on the geopolitical tensions and the trade war of President Donald Trump, the words of Zuckerberg in 2023 are probably sounded faithful to many CEOs today.
“I think the outside world is quite volatile right now,” said Zuckerberg in the interview. “And I wanted to make sure we had a stable position.”
Intermediate executives have increasingly found a target on the back in recent years. Massive companies have followed the example of Meta in the past year, Amazon and Google passing to flatten their graphics of organisms In the midst of an accent renewed on greater efficiency.
Their CEOs also expressed their reasons.
On Amazon, CEO Andy Jassy said in September that the company would increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers of at least 15% by the end of March.
“Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organizations more than today,” he said at the time. In short, he told employees in November all hands, “I hate bureaucracy”.
Google cuts the director, director and vice-president of 10%roles, said CEO Sundar Pichai in December.
Pichai said Google had made changes designed to simplify the company and stimulate its efficiency, two employees who heard CEO’s comments told Business Insider. In September 2022, he said he wanted Google to be 20% more efficient; months later, the company led a Massive Sound of Layoffseliminating 12,000 jobs.
“Over the past two years, we have experienced periods of spectacular growth,” Pichai told staff in an email about these layoffs. “To correspond and feed this growth, we have hired for a different economic reality from that we are facing today.”
Salesforce in 2023 Reduces some management layers And transformed certain managers into individual contributors, in order to reduce “spans” and “control layers” throughout the business. Earlier that year, the CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, announced layoffs of 10% of the workforce as part of a cost restructuring plan. In his memo to the staff, he quoted the pandemic of overhead and an “stimulating” economic environment as reasons of the cuts.
Intermediate executives have done Almost a third of layoffs Among the white collars in 2023, a Live Data Technologies analysis for Bloomberg found.
Match Group, the parent company of meetings like Tinder and Hinge, announced this week a 13% reduction in its workforce, affecting one in five managers.
Beyond technology, the emphasis on the flattening has extended to the giants of other industries.
Citi in 2023 announced that it recommended its management layers from 13 to eight; The company then announced discounts affecting 1,500 management roles. At the beginning of 2024, UPS said that it linked 12,000 of its 85,000 managers.
Some experts in the workplace have said that the major flattening targeting intermediate managers could affect the workforce, because intermediate managers often assume vital responsibilities such as the executives of the higher management and stimulate the morale and the performance of employees.
The trend continues that companies decide that restructuring to reduce the number of managers is the right decision to appease investors who are zero in efficiency, especially after the boom of technology pandemic hiring.
Or as Zuckerberg previously said:
“I do not think you want a management structure that only does managers managing directors, managing directors, managing directors, managing people who do work.”
businessinsider
