Brironni Alex was so good at answering telephone calls and emails from customers at Zappos.com Inc. that the company promoted her to customer-service manager.
But when the online retailer adopted a management philosophy called Holacracy, she lost her job title and responsibility for performance reviews. Since the end of April, Zappos has zero managers to oversee employees, who are supposed to decide largely for themselves how to get their work done.
“I am managing the work, but before I was managing the worker,” says Ms. Alex, 26 years old, now part of a team implementing Holacracy throughout Zappos. Ex-managers haven’t been guaranteed another job and could have their pay cut next year, though Zappos says that is unlikely. Ms. Alex says the changes give her more time for a workplace diversity committee and to perform on the Zappos dance team.
The shake-up has been jarring even for a company famous for doing things differently. Earlier this month, Zappos said about 14%, or 210, of its roughly 1,500 employees had decided Holacracy wasn’t for them, and they will leave the retailer.
Beyond initial snags, known inside Zappos as “the dip,” some employees wonder how they will win pay raises and advance their careers with no management track. Other workers have said the new system feels like a drag at a company where “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness” is one of 10 “core values” and a conference room features a Chuck E. Cheese’s-style pit filled with small plastic balls.
Boss-free companies are the extreme version of a recent push to flatten out management hierarchies that can create bottlenecks and slow productivity. W.L. Gore & Associates Inc., the maker of Gore-Tex fabric, says it has more than 10,000 employees and annual sales of more than $3 billion but no traditional organizational charts or chain of command.
Research shows that the value of flat organizations is mixed, though highly motivated workers who thrive on creativity generally are best suited for going bossless.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/zappos-banishing-bosses-brings-confusion-023300522.html
I think flattening the management structure is a good idea. Companies have been doing that for a long time. But to go full retard? That's a stretch.
But when the online retailer adopted a management philosophy called Holacracy, she lost her job title and responsibility for performance reviews. Since the end of April, Zappos has zero managers to oversee employees, who are supposed to decide largely for themselves how to get their work done.
“I am managing the work, but before I was managing the worker,” says Ms. Alex, 26 years old, now part of a team implementing Holacracy throughout Zappos. Ex-managers haven’t been guaranteed another job and could have their pay cut next year, though Zappos says that is unlikely. Ms. Alex says the changes give her more time for a workplace diversity committee and to perform on the Zappos dance team.
The shake-up has been jarring even for a company famous for doing things differently. Earlier this month, Zappos said about 14%, or 210, of its roughly 1,500 employees had decided Holacracy wasn’t for them, and they will leave the retailer.
Beyond initial snags, known inside Zappos as “the dip,” some employees wonder how they will win pay raises and advance their careers with no management track. Other workers have said the new system feels like a drag at a company where “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness” is one of 10 “core values” and a conference room features a Chuck E. Cheese’s-style pit filled with small plastic balls.
Boss-free companies are the extreme version of a recent push to flatten out management hierarchies that can create bottlenecks and slow productivity. W.L. Gore & Associates Inc., the maker of Gore-Tex fabric, says it has more than 10,000 employees and annual sales of more than $3 billion but no traditional organizational charts or chain of command.
Research shows that the value of flat organizations is mixed, though highly motivated workers who thrive on creativity generally are best suited for going bossless.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/zappos-banishing-bosses-brings-confusion-023300522.html
I think flattening the management structure is a good idea. Companies have been doing that for a long time. But to go full retard? That's a stretch.
