Reducing Managers While Keeping Work Intact: How to Make an Organization Leaner

While reducing the number of managers can cut approval steps and labor costs, it does not mean that the coordination and development duties previously handled by managers simply disappear. Looking at Amazon's approach to organizational simplification alongside Gallup's 2026 analysis, the success or failure of reducing management layers depends less on how many employees are assigned to the remaining individuals and more on which tasks are eliminated and where others are relocated. For companies designing their organizations and budgets for the following year, it makes sense to treat manager reduction targets and management task redistribution plans as the same decision-making process. The Decision to Reduce Managers vs. The Decision to Reduce Management In a message to employees released in 2024, Amazon explained that as the organization grew, management layers increased, leading to an a…