The New Cutback Target: Managers Who Manage Few
After broader management-level cutbacks, some firms are turning managers of small groups into an endangered species.
Haven’t managers been under siege in corporate America for years? Haven’t the managerial layers already been flattened and the ranks reorganized? Aren’t companies that previously sported a dozen managerial layers now down to six? Haven’t we moved on from pruning managers?
Not yet, it appears. One global firm announced cuts of 20% of its managers last week, and nationwide, companies are now thinning the ranks of those who have one to four reports. Managers now oversee an average of 12.1 workers each, up from 10.9 in 2024; since 2013, the teams they’re responsible for have grown by 50%, according to Gallup. Today, they’re expected to be so-called player-coaches, as working members of a team that generates revenue. “Are we simply loading even more onto managers’ plates?” asks engagement expert Mark Royal, senior client partner at Korn Ferry Advisory.
To be sure, reducing layers of management can yield benefits, including fewer handoffs and easier coordination, as well as more direct connection with upper leadership and, for team members, more decision-making and responsibility. But there are downsides—lots of them: Cutting roles with oversight of only a few people means hiring fewer first-time managers. Meanwhile, those who oversee large teams inevitably have less time for check-ins, team-member career development, and feedback, not to mention the broader work of connecting with employees and understanding their goals. “One worries that the work that’s going to get crowded out is people-managing tasks,” says Royal.
Many experts blame AI—specifically, corporate chiefs thinking the technology can handle much of the tracking role managers play—for the renewed focus on management pruning. But Shanda Mints, vice president for AI strategy and transformation at Korn Ferry, points out that firms need more, not fewer, managers to walk employees through AI fluency and adoption. “If this is normal corporate cleanup, then of course that’s still going to happen, but if someone is thinking that AI is going to solve management problems, they are actually complicating the problem.”
Years of Korn Ferry client research suggests that there is a sweet spot for team size, says Royal: If the team is too small, members feel micromanaged and disempowered; if it’s too large, they lack the access, support, and connection they need to thrive. The size of the sweet spot varies by organization and function; for example, on a team of people doing completely different tasks, more oversight will be needed. But as a rule of thumb, a manager with a team of 10 to 15 people can hold two to three one-on-ones daily (and thus meet individually with everyone on the team every week). A manager with a team of 20 needs can hold one-on-ones with every team member in alternate weeks at best—which can mean that the meetings become check-ins rather than true management.
Typically, player-coaches who are spread thin can give their limited attention only to the squeakiest wheels. And the people suited to be player-coaches must be jacks-of-all-trades who can handle a multifaceted role. “It’s maddening,” says JP Sniffen, practice leader at the Military Center of Expertise at Korn Ferry. Corporations want a manager to be the biggest biller on the team, and also to lead it. Then, during restructurings, they tend to roll other groups into existing ones, giving the manager more scope—and no relief. It’s a risky gambit: One bad manager overseeing multiple groups can do a lot of damage. “With a bad manager, there’s a much larger swath of spoilage. That’s a real danger,” says Sniffen.
Job-search experts advise leaders to reduce the expectations they have for candidates’ skill sets in these manager roles. They shouldn’t expect new managers to arrive fully trained and ready to dive in, oversee multiple groups, and deliver high individual performance. “I often find myself saying, ‘This person doesn’t exist,’” says Sniffen. Unless the hirers become more flexible in their criteria, the outcomes are likely to be middling: The hirer will have to opt for a partial solution, or the job will go unfilled—which is its own can of worms.
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