Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why are corporations cutting managers?

arnoldkling.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#31

Post by danjl »

dyauspitr wrote: post #17
apwell23 wrote: post #2

This is all over news but is this actually true. Meta is always citied as example because Mark said and did bunch of things to appease the markets. There are no reduction in numbers at meta now. Middle managers have made a comeback at meta big time. CEOs love middle managers despite what they say to investors. Even the numbers cited in the article are not convincing > middle-manager head counts by about 6% since the…

Middle management gets a bad rap but that political battleground makes or break companies.

Exactly. Not having political battlegrounds makes companies better. Whereas, it sounds like you're saying having people to fight in the battleground is the goal.

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#33

Post by [deleted] »

jawns wrote: post #21

Remember that about 3-4 years ago, we experienced the Great Migration. The percentage of tech workers who moved to new companies was very high compared with historical migration patterns. Interests rates were still very low, companies had been buoyed by pandemic-related assistance, and inflation hadn't yet set in, so the salaries that were being offered were very attractive. In the years since, the incentives to leav…

[deleted]

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#35

Post by georgeecollins »

danjl wrote: post #31
dyauspitr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle management gets a bad rap but that political battleground makes or break companies.

Exactly. Not having political battlegrounds makes companies better. Whereas, it sounds like you're saying having people to fight in the battleground is the goal.

I think what the previous post meant was that a political battleground always exists, not that middle managers create them. If you think they don't, you're telling me your role in the organization without telling me your role.

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#36

Post by acjohnson55 »

To begin with, the people who make and influence strategic decisions at companies--executives, boards, and major investors--are just as susceptible to fads as anybody else. The difference is that the fads they get into have massive impacts on people's lives. You rarely get fired for making a bad decisions everyone else is making at the same time. We see this in professional sports where playcallers will make decisions that are conventional but demonstrably suboptimal.

There are a lot of managers who are force multipliers for their teams. There are a lot that do crucial glue work but aren't gamechangers. There are a lot who are mediocre. There are some that are counterproductive. It is very difficult to tell the difference between these. Even if you have lots of time, it is hard to isolate the work of the manager from the circumstances they're in. One way to find out is to get rid of the managers and see which initiatives suffer.

I'm guessing we'll see the number of managers gradually converge to whatever the long-term average, unless the nature of white collar work has changed. On case-by-case bases, teams that are hamstrung by insufficient management will demand more management. They'll get it, especially if they are doing critical work. Other teams will regain management due to the desire for consistency.

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#37

Post by _DeadFred_ »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #3

Corporations cut managers because they're expensive. Not having enough managers is also expensive though.

In the past maybe. Now that all managers are 'working managers' and treated as a manager and an addition human work unit I'm not so sure. Corporations don't normally replaced the fired manager with an additional human work unit and just expect the team to absorb one more HWU worth of work with the smaller headcount.

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#38

Post by _DeadFred_ »

mschild wrote: post #25
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #24

A number of corporations are going to learn hard lessons from indiscriminate cutting of middle management, like when Google thought they were being innovative in not having much management a long time ago.

I think as with everything, it depends on what end of the spectrum your company is at. There are a lot companies, Volkswagen to name a prominent example, that have over time built up massive management layers that don't ultimately serve the company goals. Getting rid of excess is something that is necessary because they have ballooned to expensive and unhealthy proportions. Having none at all or too little obviously…

Manufacturing is all about management though, isn't it? Management is the make or break in that industry. Sure you can coast with your current setup, but that isn't enough for an auto company long term.

You need to manage your PLM (product life cycle CAD/design software) integrated to your EBOM (engineering bill of materials) to your MBOM (manufacturing bill of materials) to support your ERP (enterprise resource planning) in support of your MRP (manufacturing resource planning). All of that requires people at higher levels that understand the systems at the conceptual level and the company specific level, working together to make sure that 40,000 parts manufactured in house and purchased externally, all with varying lead times, come together at the exact right time to build the correct model/configuration for the market right now.

I've seen plenty of companies making bank today but that were doomed because they no longer did any of the above, they fired management, they outsourced design, they outsourced IT, they coasted on prior managers work in setting/configuring everything and it all became fixed in place as is. Best they could hope for was to bring in consultants to heavy lift changes as part of 'major' efforts going forward, allowing what managers would have been continually adapting to pill up until it became such a big issue money was freed up for the consultants.

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#39

Post by 98codes »

jmclnx wrote: post #14
datadrivenangel wrote: post #3

Corporations cut managers because they're expensive. Not having enough managers is also expensive though.

Actually my manager was "demoted" back to a programmer, which I think is a good thing. He was forced onto management a few years ago, but that was a waste of talent in my opinion. I also think a lot of stress he suffered as a manager is gone. But yes, a lot of people were let go at the same time (8 months ago). And the article, no useful information from what I can see.

One of the big things that keeps me where I'm working now is the org structure that keeps managers & non-managers on separate career tracks until significantly higher in the org chart than most big companies. Moving between manager & not isn't a promotion or demotion; it's a sideways shift.

Re: Why are corporations cutting managers?

#40

Post by dyauspitr »

danjl wrote: post #31
dyauspitr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle management gets a bad rap but that political battleground makes or break companies.

Exactly. Not having political battlegrounds makes companies better. Whereas, it sounds like you're saying having people to fight in the battleground is the goal.

Those battles will always exist and need to be fought.
Post reply on HN