The flattening of management structures will have consequential effects at all levels of the workplace.

Career paths are being profoundly changed whereby senior executives are now being recruited into organisations at the highest level leaving little to no room for middle managers to move.

With the flattening of management layers comes the increased work load for middle managers. On average they could expect to have 6-12 direct reports. Now they're more likely to have 50-60 direct reports.

The culture of the workplace will also be affected. Hierarchies, it turns out, were better at sending messages up the layers, however in flatter organisations there is often no message being conveyed at all. As a result senior managers' perceptions and workers' perceptions sharply diverge, making it almost impossible for effective implementation and consistency of purpose to be achieved.

The influence of demographics on organisational politics adds further complexity to the middle managers' role. Generation Y workers much prefer flat structures; they do not accept orders and protocols and will not suffer in silence.
(BRW, 6 April - p64)