AI will replace middle management before robots replace hourly workers

a) Interpreting: either top->down by explaining and enforcing corporate policy on hourly workers or bottom->up by ensuring workers enter data to be reported on correctly

b) "Encouraging": an employee calls in sick, again. Neither firing them or giving them the day off every time are desirable. The managers role is to "encourage" the performance and attendance (in one way or another)

Neither of these are low hanging fruit for automation or even middle hanging fruit for automation.

edit: I would also add that the comment "Union formation across the retail landscape will force corporations to reduce management head count" is backwards. From a management perspective, if labor gets rowdy you need more overseers to keep them in line. More union activity = more management headcount

AI managers and lawyers replacing middle management is a good premise for a sci-fi story but not much else. Not to mention that the article focuses on retail. As long as Google uses middle managers I'm fairly certain ALDI will. They still use fax in Japan. If you want to talk about the pace of tech change in ordinary large business I'd take that as a reference point