Key Points
About four years ago, managers at the London-based consulting firm where Dani works decided to flatten the company's traditional hierarchy..
This can affect worker morale, and studies show removing those layers can increase employee satisfaction.Indeed, management scholars have generally found that autonomy is a major motivator for employees, and flatter structures are often implemented to grant individuals more independence...
In the worst cases, he adds, removing hierarchies may give rise to an alternative more clandestine power structure, in which those with the right connections may accumulate informal influence.This may be especially exclusionary to some employees, due to the psychological phenomenon of in-group bias the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others who belong to the same group...
When the traditionally hierarchical corporate ladder is dismantled, the process of change itself can be disconcerting, and make workers feel lost, irrelevant or frustrated.This may especially be the case if companies change too quickly, says Todd Jick, a professor at Columbia Business School in New York City, who specialises in leadership and organisational change...
Ultimately, Danis employer in London reversed some of the most dramatic changes it had made: she says the executives were able to see the impact that those changes were having on employees and contributing to workers attrition.The company re-introduced some job titles to denote different seniority levels, which became clear benchmarks for progress again..
