The Great Flattening: How hierarchies are disappearing
The Great Flattening is a growing workplace trend, reshaping organizations by removing middle management, boosting agility, and redefining leadership and technology roles.
Executive Summary
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The Great Flattening marks a fundamental shift from traditional, hierarchical models to flatter, more Agile organizations, removing layers of middle management to accelerate communication, decision-making and innovation.
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Driven by digital transformation and AI, The Great Flattening empowers teams with automation, real-time data, and collaboration tools, positioning CIOs and technology leaders as architects of connectivity and organizational agility.
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As hierarchies shrink, leadership evolves toward coaching, empowerment, and digital fluency. At the same time, employees -- particularly Gen Z -- seek autonomy, transparency, and skill growth over titles, requiring leaders to balance agility with stability and clarity.
Organizations are moving away from the traditional pyramid, toward flatter and more Agile structures -- a trend known as The Great Flattening.
The Great Flattening refers to a growing trend where organizations eliminate layers of middle management to create "flatter" organizational structures. This shift redefines the role of the manager as businesses move away from hierarchical structures.
The Great Flattening is more than simply restructuring the business or going through a period of redundancies. It is a structural shift, redefining the way leadership -- and technology -- functions within the organization.
What is The Great Flattening?
The Great Flattening is a growing workplace trend where organizations dismantle traditional, multi-layered hierarchical work structures in favor of flatter, leaner and more Agile structures. The trend sees businesses move away from multiple layers of middle management to boost communication between teams and senior leaders -- empowering teams to make decisions more quickly.
"Fewer layers of hierarchy mean quicker communication and faster decision making," said Susan Cantrell, human capital eminence leader and vice president of products and workforce strategies at Deloitte. "With fewer approval layers, teams can have zero distance to the customer."
Enabled by digital transformation and workflow management tools -- The Great Fattening reduces bottlenecks, improves communication throughout the organization and boosts innovation.
The Great Flattening presents an opportunity for businesses to become more Agile, but for CIOs and other technology leaders, the opportunity also lies in establishing technology as the key for communication and connection. As layers of management are removed, CIOs are responsible for ensuring the smooth running of day-to-day operations, and ensuring that -- despite structural changes -- systems are put in place to boost connectivity.
Why are companies flattening?
There are many reasons business leaders are looking to flatter structures, including the following:
Cost savings
Flattening organizational hierarchies reduces overhead and allows for the reallocation of resources into areas such as technology investment and upskilling. "Organizations are looking to reduce middle management to free up costs, driven by AI and the thought that AI can do a lot of what has previously been done by people," Cantrell said.
Response to AI
Rapid development and implementation of AI and generative AI tools is a driving factor behind The Great Flattening, as it empowers workers to find the answers to their questions quickly.
"The need to ask your manager to get info on a new client, policy or process is starting to eliminate a layer of management privilege," said Josh Bersin, global industry analyst and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company.
Culture and employee expectations
The Great Flattening is also in part driven by changes in employee expectations. As younger generations enter the workforce, shifts in workplace values can create a ripple in the structure of the workforce.
According to research by Robert Walters, younger employees are opting into personal career growth over hierarchical structures. Double the number of Gen Z would opt for a flat structure over a hierarchical one, while 72% of Gen Z employees value an individual route to progression over managing others.
"There has been an increasing trend of employee frustration with bureaucracy," said Sara Green-Hamann, founder of Tallwood Human Resources Consulting. "Flattening helps to alleviate that and put employees directly in contact with decision makers. Once employees have that access, it's hard to go back."
Improved agility
When structures are flattened, cross-functional teams can collaborate quickly, responding to information in real time -- without time-consuming approval processes.
"There is a pressing need for increased agility and responsiveness," Cantrell said. "Businesses are in a position where they need to move faster, and layers of approval slow decision-making down," Green-Hamann said. "Today's workforce wants access to decision-makers, autonomy and impact. Flattening checks these boxes."
Technology and The Great Flattening
For CIOs and other technology leaders, The Great Flattening redefines their role from IT overseer to architect of organizational agility
Choosing the right tools and systems enables teams to act independently without waiting for approval from higher-ups. Tasks that once required multiple layers of oversight can be handled automatically and through real-time dashboards, allowing teams to be more autonomous and act independently.
Leaders must ensure systems and tools effectively contribute to the vision of a flatter business. Examples of these technologies and tools might include the following:
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Automation and AI tools.
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Communication and collaboration tools.
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Data and analytics platforms.
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Employee experience platforms.
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Project and workflow management .
How will The Great Flattening impact leadership?
As the role of the manager shifts, the role of leadership will too. The Great Flattening doesn't eliminate leadership but instead democratizes it. As The Great Flattening puts leaders within closer reach of teams, new skillsets that have typically not been required from top levels of leadership will become essential. These include the following:
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Coaching and development. A flatter structure means professional development happens horizontally; there are fewer career ladders to climb. Leaders must be able to give active and actionable support to employees in place of traditional role promotions.
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Empowerment and trust-building. In a flatter organizational structure, leaders must empower teams to act autonomously.
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Digital fluency. Leaders must be fluent in the technologies that power collaboration and communication across the business.
"When you flatten the organization, it can lead to greater employee empowerment, but leaders have to maintain some degree of consistency and control," Cantrell said.
Cantrell said though leaders want agility, employees still need stability. During the process of flattening, leaders must navigate the stability vs. agility tension. Deloitte's 2025 Global Human Capital Trends survey revealed that 75% of workers are hoping for greater work stability in the future. In the face of businesses shifting their structures to drive innovation, it will be up to leaders to find an equilibrium.
"Leaders will be stretched, especially if they aren't prepared to manage larger teams or more direct reports," Green-Hamann said.
The Great Flattening and employee morale
Flattening the business provides employees with autonomy and ownership of their work, but if not done thoughtfully, it can cause anxiety and ambiguity. Businesses need to take this into consideration when flattening an organization. Other ways businesses can support employee morale include the following:
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Be transparent. "To maintain morale, businesses need to be transparent about why they are flattening the organization and what that means for each impacted employee," Green-Hamann said. Transparency is key to keeping employees in the loop about decision-making.
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Provide clarity and streamline job titles. "Another major shift underway is the simplification of job architectures," Bersin said. "Companies are now working hard to streamline job titles, ultimately providing greater clarity, mobility and sense of security."
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Invest in every employee. When going through the process of restructuring and flattening, investment in each individual employee, their title and their role can be an effective way of demonstrating that, contrary to possible fears, employees are valued and are an important part of a larger picture.
"A flattened structure doesn't mean there is no growth for employees," Green-Hamann said. "There may be growth in stretch assignments, mentorship or skill building. Employees need to hear about this change clearly and often."
Rosa Heaton is a content manager for the IT Strategy group at Informa TechTarget.
