OO Managers/Supervisors

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Tao
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OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Tao »

I know a number of folks here have mentioned they have positions as managers or supervisors; how many direct reports or or employees do you manage, what is your "span of control" in business speak? What is the most you have or would consider managing?

Backstory; I currently work as an IT manager for a Federal Agency, and at the moment have 8 folks I manage. The most I have managed in my current position is 10. When I was in the military I ran my own IT shop and had 8 to 12 Marines in my unit at any given time. I interviewed for a manager position with another federal Department today and at the end of the interview I asked the panel how many direct reports the position was responsible for and the response was "well we are reorganizing some things so it's a bit fluid but anywhere from 20 to 50 depending on how things shake out". Thankfully I was on a phone interview because I definitely did a WTF head shake. I can not imagine trying to EFFECTIVELY manage 20+ employees. I also asked how they handled performance reviews, whether they were pass/fail or if they did fully successful ratings, i.e. full write ups with multiple critical elements and so forth and was told they do fully successful. I probably spend 3 to 4 hours doing each performance appraisal for my employees during review time, between time spent in managers calibration meetings, doing the actual write-up and reviewing the appraisal with each employee. With 50 employees that would be roughly 150 to 200 hours spent on just reviews, I would just about get done and it would be time to start all over again. Would love to hear from anyone who has successfully (or not) had to single handedly manage a very large group of employees.
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Jeff V
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Jeff V »

Currently I manage 8 techs across 3 states to support infrastructure across 20 plants, office buildings, and warehouse facilities. This includes the corporate HQ and corporate IT HQ for a global company and is the single most important region in terms of number of users and devices supported in addition to all of the top corporate and North American execs. I recently lost a tech in a WFR and used to have iron fisting authority over the executive cabana boy, a position he wasn't good at that was also eliminated during the WFR.

When it comes to reviews (and we are getting near that time), framework, organization and consistency are important. We rate our employees on about 10 competencies plus performance on goals from the prior year. Coming up with goals is probably the most difficult part, my mangers discourage giving everyone all the same goals, so a couple needs to be unique. We also solicit self-evaluations, telling the minions they are full of shit and have an inflated opinion of themselves always gives a good talking points for a start. The reviews themselves rarely last more than 15 minutes.
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LordMortis
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by LordMortis »

Tao wrote: Wed Jan 17, 2018 7:40 pm I know a number of folks here have mentioned they have positions as managers or supervisors; how many direct reports or or employees do you manage, what is your "span of control" in business speak? What is the most you have or would consider managing?

Backstory; I currently work as an IT manager for a Federal Agency, and at the moment have 8 folks I manage. The most I have managed in my current position is 10. When I was in the military I ran my own IT shop and had 8 to 12 Marines in my unit at any given time. I interviewed for a manager position with another federal Department today and at the end of the interview I asked the panel how many direct reports the position was responsible for and the response was "well we are reorganizing some things so it's a bit fluid but anywhere from 20 to 50 depending on how things shake out". Thankfully I was on a phone interview because I definitely did a WTF head shake. I can not imagine trying to EFFECTIVELY manage 20+ employees. I also asked how they handled performance reviews, whether they were pass/fail or if they did fully successful ratings, i.e. full write ups with multiple critical elements and so forth and was told they do fully successful. I probably spend 3 to 4 hours doing each performance appraisal for my employees during review time, between time spent in managers calibration meetings, doing the actual write-up and reviewing the appraisal with each employee. With 50 employees that would be roughly 150 to 200 hours spent on just reviews, I would just about get done and it would be time to start all over again. Would love to hear from anyone who has successfully (or not) had to single handedly manage a very large group of employees.
Being a teacher is like managing 30 direct reports.... I couldn't hack it. Others can. But as a manager, that is all you would do. I can imagine supervising 20 people and doing anything other than tracking them, their work, and being the go between between them and next level up. As you say, you track and monitor their work and finish just in time for the next initiative of tracking and monitoring their work.

I'd want to hang myself. But some people thrive on that.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Blackhawk »

Currently? Zero. At one point, anywhere between a dozen and twenty officers depending on the day and time. Unless there was an emergency, at which point I suddenly became in charge of hundreds, which is strange.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by FishPants »

I just recently moved into the C-Suite, and in my career I've learned that 6 or less is the sweet spot. Any more than that, and you aren't effectively managing (and even at 6, I take a more servant leadership role -- bring me a road block and I'll remove it, otherwise do your fucking job). Depth wise I have a lot under me, but really on a regular basis I like to have around 6.. I just started this job on Monday, and I currently have 17 direct reports -- first order of business is to put in a buffer layer of management and take that down to 3-4.

Nobody has time to manage 20-50 people effectively, which means you are going to fuck up, which means your 20-50 directs are going to be pissed at you and in turn that creates a cycle of misery. I get if it's interim while you figure out the right structure, but if it's a "yeah going to be like this for a few years" forget it -- that's pretty indicative of the culture at that company which doesn't place any value on work/life balance or career growth.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Zarathud »

I have one full time paralegal and one assistant. The assistant covers me and the paralegal and only one other attorney . There is also a paralegal who handles crossover work in her area. All three also serve other masters and have soft target numbers -- hours on site or billed -- they must meet. They will be manageable once I can train them. They may be trained to become reflex responses. Until then, they are only extra hands.

There are 2 off site paralegals I need to get onboard to staff my work but that is always difficult. There is an off site associate who is nice and smart but knows she needs to prioritize the local attorneys who can reward her. They might be extra brains but will be inattentive periodically like college students at best. Give them a specific task and they can likely perform. That's it.

I will do 2 full reviews and 4 partial reviews with limited leverage. Law firm management is not efficient. But at least I'm not herding other lawyers yet, which is like dealing with cats.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Kraken »

My biggest staff was around 20, including a bunch of part-timers. I didn't like that. Agree with Fishpants that 6 or less is ideal.

I was pretty good at managing -- I often drifted into that role without seeking it -- but in the end I didn't like it. You're the fulcrum that has to balance three mutually antagonistic factions: workers, Corporate, and customers. Somebody is always pissed off.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by malchior »

The business school answer is no more than 8 direct reports. However like Fishpants I find more than 6 to be a hassle. I have 5 now and that is very manageable. Plus I'm in consulting and managing people there is 95% guidance counselor versus day to day supervision. Back to the original post though. 20-50?!? That is organizational chaos. Did they mean actual "direct" reports? There is no chance to succeed as a manager with that span of control.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by The Meal »

How do you fill 8+ hours a day managing eight professionals?
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Rip »

The Meal wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:02 am How do you fill 8+ hours a day managing eight professionals?
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Jeff V
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Jeff V »

The Meal wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:02 am How do you fill 8+ hours a day managing eight professionals?
I'm not supposed to be doing any tech work, but sometimes it's unavoidable if all the minions are busy or at other locations. We also have lots of projects to track, most of my time is doing research, writing documentation, and training and monitoring off shore teams that ostensibly exist to make our lives easier.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Jaddison »

I have 5. I think directly managing more than 10 would be nearly impossible. If you were to manage 50 you would need a couple layers of management to even come close to saying you are "managing" the effort.
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The Meal
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by The Meal »

Jeff V wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:06 am
The Meal wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:02 am How do you fill 8+ hours a day managing eight professionals?
I'm not supposed to be doing any tech work, but sometimes it's unavoidable
Not managing employees
if all the minions are busy or at other locations. We also have lots of projects to track,
Managing projects, related to employees. What's tracking invovle?
most of my time is doing research,
Not managing employees
writing documentation,
Not managing employees
and training
Managing employees
and monitoring
What's involved?
off shore teams
Not your direct reports?
that ostensibly exist to make our lives easier.
I understand (and would sometimes heavily emphasize) the meaning behind "ostensibly".

If you threw away everything not related to managing your direct reports — specifically professionals (folks who should not need direct direction given on a daily basis) — how many is a reasonable number for you, if you're to work a 45-hour(ish) week?

Legitimately asking questions here. I've spent a lot of time wondering about ideal management setups for professionals, now that I've seen a few business of a few sizes across a few industries. Right now I'm in a 15-person office (30 person company) and there's not any semblance of management to be found (despite an ostensible three layers of it in place). It's like two layers of golf buddies for the owner or something. I totally don't get it.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by AWS260 »

I have a team of nine, of whom 3 are my direct reports. It's the right number, from my small-company perspective -- I have enough time to track and manage their work and growth, and still have time to do actual work myself (which I enjoy more than the management stuff).
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Lassr »

Wow. 20-50 would be unmanageable if you had to do fully successful appraisals (without help from leads). I'm a fed also under that system, I manage 8 but my supervisor does the performance write up for 12 employees, I just provide input for my 8. It takes her a while to do all 12 with all her other duties. I'd definitely look at how many leads are under you that maybe could help. Can they do everything but be the signature on the appraisal? At NASA the supervisor has the edit access to our SPACE appraisal system, I just provide write ups she can copy and paste in. With that it still takes her a while.
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by noxiousdog »

The Meal wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2018 9:02 am How do you fill 8+ hours a day managing eight professionals?
Due to your follow-up responses to Jeff, I"m not sure I understand your question.

Sure, theoretically, the professionals on my team could self manage, but 1), they don't, and 2) they don't speak with one voice to other organizations without me defining our product design and organization. If I could stop having to say, "No, you can't do it your own way; you have to do it the way we all agreed and documented" 4-5 times a day, they could likely self manage, but apparently that's really hard.

The smaller the company the more likely they can be self sufficient. However, technically, I don't have any direct reports. I manage 6 vendors with around 150 DBAs. Most of my time is spent in project management, documentation, configuration management, mentoring, and selling our products and services.
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Jeff V
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Re: OO Managers/Supervisors

Post by Jeff V »

Approximately none of my typical day involves hovering over employees micromanaging them. One of my direct reports I've never even met in person and I've never been to any of the 4 facilities he covers for me.

I am the queue manager, so all incidents and service requests for my group route through me. I reassign most of them, load balancing for facilities with multiple techs. I try to make sure I understand what all the requests need to be resolved as I am also the escalation point for the techs. I also have to directly manage the resolution of critical incidents and that can sometimes involve bringing in multiple teams, some international. That is most fun when the problem occurs at 3 am.

I also have regular communication, often via Google hangouts, with my staff, either directing them to address the latest squirrel that captures my boss's attention or answering any questions they might have. Since I am queue manager, I also field constant inquiries regarding the status of work in progress. Many other managers, admins, and other IT staff regularly contact me for a variety of reasons and every quarter I meet with the top management of all facilities under my domain and always stress to those managers that I am their liaison to anything they need done in IT, and this sometimes drags me into projects I have no stake in.

I've never had a purely administrative management job. The most direct reports was around 30 when I managed a restaurant back in my 20's. I probably did as much cooking, cleaning and serving as any of the minions. My current staff all has many years experience doing what they do, I prefer to stay out of their way for the most part, just tuning their focus when necessary and facilitating when it makes sense to do so.

Upcoming staff review means I can usually get a work from home day or two without much grief so I can work on them without interruption.
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