Episode
HR News: The Great Flattening and the AI Future of Middle Management with Blair Doran
- Podcast
- Good Morning, HR
- Published
- Jun 25, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2962
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Summary
In episode 258, Coffey talks with Blair Doran about the “Great Flattening” of middle management, AI adoption in HR, and the thawing job market's impact on employee retention. They discuss the Great Flattening and the causes of middle management cuts; the risk of losing institutional culture and coaching capacity when middle managers are eliminated; poor selection criteria for promoting individual contributors into management roles without leadership training; AI adoption shifting employee self-service away from managers and freeing them for strategic work; HR's evolving role in understanding business operations rather than acting purely as a compliance gatekeeper; state-level AI employment law developments in Colorado, Illinois, and New York amid federal disparate impact uncertainty; confidentiality and trade secret risks when employees use AI for brainstorming and content creation; a recent study comparing passive AI cut-and-paste use versus active AI collaboration on employee engagement and output quality; job security concerns and the thawing job market's effect on long-tenured employee retention; and proactive employee engagement strategies to prevent turnover before it becomes a retention crisis. For HR teams who discuss this podcast in their team meetings, we've created a discussion starter PDF to help guide your conversation. Download it here https://goodmorninghr.com/EP258 Good Morning, HR is brought to you by Imperative—Bulletproof Background Checks . For more information about our commitment to quality and excellent customer service, visit us at https://imperativeinfo.com . If you are an HRCI or SHRM-certified professional, this episode of Good Morning, HR has been pre-approved for half a recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information for t…