The Blubber

Layoffs are rippling through corporate America, leaving middle managers overwhelmed as they juggle additional responsibilities. With internal processes slowing down and supervisors stretched thin, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is shifting decision-making power from managers to frontline employees.

“You add a lot of people, and you end up with a lot of middle managers. And those middle managers, all well-intended, want to put their fingerprint on everything,” Jassy said in a recent Bloomberg interview.

“So you end up with these people being in the pre-meeting, for the pre-meeting, for the pre-meeting, for the decision meeting, and not always making recommendations and owning things the way we want that type of ownership.”

Jassy has long been vocal about flattening Amazon’s hierarchy, but he recently revealed that the company is ahead of schedule in its restructuring efforts.

Last September, he announced plans to “increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025.” Now, he says Amazon has already surpassed that goal, allowing employees to take on more ownership and operate with greater autonomy.

“It’s going to allow us, for the people that are doing the work, they’re gonna have more ownership and they’re going to be able to move more quickly,” Jassy said.

With fewer managers, Amazon employees will be expected to self-manage and collaborate more efficiently. However, a core part of Jassy’s vision still includes a strict five-day return-to-office (RTO) mandate.

Amazon’s Boss Wants His Leaner Workforce in the Office

While Jassy is reducing layers of management and giving employees more control, he’s firm on requiring them to work in person.

Despite employee backlash—including widespread “rage applying” for new jobs, negative survey responses, and a strongly worded letter to Amazon Web Services (AWS) leadership—the company is holding its ground.

“If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay, there are other companies around,” AWS CEO Matt Garman said during an all-hands meeting in November, per Reuters. “When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in-person.”

While RTO mandates remain unpopular, Amazon’s restructuring—giving employees more independence and reducing managerial oversight—aligns with what Gen Z workers say they want.

Amazon has not yet responded to Fortune’s request for comment.

Middle Management Is Falling Out of Favor

Jassy isn’t the only leader targeting middle management. Other major corporations have made similar moves to streamline operations.

In 2023, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the need for “flattening” the organization, stating that shifting middle managers into individual contributor roles would speed up information flow. He credited Elon Musk for taking a bold stance on trimming management layers while other CEOs hesitated. Google also cut middle management roles last year, warning employees that those positions would become harder to attain.

Bayer, the pharmaceutical giant, eliminated supervisory roles in a bid to save $2.15 billion, asking its nearly 100,000 employees to self-organize. CEO Bill Anderson cited concerns over bureaucracy and sluggish execution. Meanwhile, Warren Buffett recently admitted in his annual Berkshire Hathaway letter that failing to properly vet middle managers had been a costly mistake, both culturally and financially.

“I’ve made mistakes when assessing the abilities or fidelity of the managers Berkshire is hiring,” Buffett wrote. “The fidelity disappointments can hurt beyond their financial impact, a pain that can approach that of a failed marriage.”

Gen Z Wants Less Management—and Less Burnout

Rather than deter young workers, a flatter hierarchy with fewer middle-management opportunities may actually attract Gen Z talent.

A 2025 survey by recruitment firm Robert Walters found that 52% of Gen Z workers would rather avoid becoming middle managers, and 72% prefer an “individual route to progression” over overseeing teams. Their reluctance to manage likely stems from the burnout they see in their supervisors—who are often stretched thin due to restructuring, corporate instability, and declining workplace well-being.

For companies like Amazon, this generational shift could make a flatter, faster-moving organization an attractive proposition.