Inside This Issue:
Welcome to the weekly read by the Employee Experience Magazine. This week we are asking: have we made being a manager too hard?
We’ve spent years telling managers to be coaches, to handle performance, wellbeing, career development, difficult conversations and now AI adoption too. All while doing their actual day job. New research has now revealed six in ten workers say they have a toxic boss. That doesn’t necessarily mean six in ten managers are terrible people. New research from the AMA also found that 51% of first-time managers receive no training at all. Before they’re expected to handle pay conversations, mental health disclosures, poor performance and career coaching.
Meanwhile, other companies are experimenting with flatter structures and fewer management layers. We dig into 4 companies who have flattened their hierarchy. The results are fascinating. Let’s get started.
Featured Insights:
Most of us have had at least one boss who has ruined our Sunday events with dread. But when 6 in 10 workers say they currently report to a toxic manager, this is bigger than a few difficult personalities. The real problem is what organisations reward, what they tolerate and how little preparation many people receive before being handed responsibility for a team. The financial and human costs are eye-watering, but this new data from The Harris Poll also points to some very practical fixes.
Managers are not disappearing, but their teams are getting much bigger. Gallup says the average span of control rose from 10.9 employees in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025, a 50% increase in team size over the past decade. As AI takes on more coordination and routine decision-making, companies are starting to question whether every layer of approval still earns its keep. We look at four organisations that have flattened their structures, what happened next and whether “unbossing” is genuinely the future of work.
Fresh off the Press
Stay current with key headlines and announcements from across the industry.
A Spotlight on the EU Pay Transparency Directive
A regulatory spotlight this week for anyone employing people in the EU, or overseeing pay and recruitment across multiple markets. The EU Pay Transparency Directive is moving from policy discussion to practical reality, with salary disclosure, employee information rights and gender pay reporting all demanding preparation now. Our six-month guide breaks down who is affected, what HR teams need to prioritise and why waiting for national legislation could leave employers scrambling.
The Insight
HR has steadily pushed people management back to the line. Now those managers are also expected to lead AI adoption, continuous change and increasingly stretched teams, often with fewer layers of support around them.
Something has to give.
If organisations want fewer managers, the ones who remain cannot be promoted simply because they were excellent at the technical job. Their role will increasingly be to lead, coach, translate change and create the conditions for others to perform.
That means promotion criteria must change. Leadership capability can no longer be treated as a bonus added after promotion. It has to become the reason for promotion in the first place.
