The HR expert spoke about the transition to "lean management" in companies

The current optimization of management is not an anti—crisis measure, but a sustainable structural shift. The labor market is entering the era of "lean management", where the value of an employee is less determined by the number of subordinates and more by the speed of adaptation and contribution to the result. Anna Alikova, an independent HR expert, told Izvestia on June 1.

According to her, the classic functions of middle management — preparing reports, relaying tasks from top to bottom and total control — are gradually becoming a thing of the past. These tasks are increasingly being taken over by various systems and chatbots. An additional factor is the development of self-managed teams working on Scrum and OKR, where tasks are distributed without a rigid hierarchy. In such circumstances, the role of a traditional manager in many companies is beginning to lose relevance.

Against this background, as the expert notes, a new model of managerial roles is being formed. It includes three main areas: a mentor (coach) who develops employees through feedback instead of direct instructions; a strategist responsible for a long-term vision and restructuring processes to meet market changes; and a change agent who implements flexible methodologies and increases team efficiency without expanding staff.

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"At the same time, the reduction of managerial staff does not occur through mass layoffs, but through a policy of "non—replacement" - when the position simply does not recover after the employee leaves. Turnover in this segment remains above average and is about 14.2% compared to 8-10% until 2020. Some specialists switch to project management or go into deep expertise, getting rid of the administrative burden, while others leave the market on their own, without waiting for formal reductions," Alikova said.

The transformation most noticeably affects IT management, administrative functions, HR, marketing and financial control - those areas that are most easily amenable to automation. At the same time, changes are slower in production and sales, since direct control is still important there. However, the norm of manageability is also growing here: one manager can now effectively coordinate 15-20 employees instead of the previous seven to nine.

According to the expert's forecast, the trend towards flat organizational structures will continue for a long time. Business increasingly evaluates not the number of management levels, but their cost and impact on the speed of decision-making. In conditions of high uncertainty, companies that have fewer intermediate links in the decision—action chain benefit. In the future, this will lead to the formation of "enriched" roles, which combine the functions of an expert, leader and performer.

On the same day, Vedomosti, citing the results of the HR Efficiency Benchmarks 2026 review by the consulting company Regroup, reported that delaying had become one of the key structural trends of 2025. Against this background, the business is reducing the number of middle managers — their number decreased by 4% in the surveyed companies, a year earlier – by 1.4%. There are no mass layoffs, and no replacements are being sought for those who have left management positions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on May 28 that the replacement of low-skilled personnel with artificial intelligence is irreversible and inevitable. According to him, AI is already replacing junior staff in process automation, documentation processing, and software code development.