How to control the management overhead

Management overhead refers to the cost, primarily in terms of time, of leading a team. Imagine a technology manager with a team of 30 direct reports who wants to closely monitor the team’s work with individual 30-minute, once-a-week one-on-one meetings with each person. This would mean that almost half of this leader’s work week would be committed to this task alone. If the professional then reduces the meetings to every two weeks, it is possible that, with cancellations and unforeseen events, the leader goes over a month without even seeing or talking to some of the team members.

Performance reviews would be another torment for this kind of manager, with 30 evaluations to complete. So much time would be spent on management tasks, such as approving leaves for each employee, analyzing possible promotions, resolving internal conflicts, thinking about retention packages, etc., that this leader would inevitably be overwhelmed and unable to find time to do technical work.

This is an example of too much management overhead. In technology, even with the career division of a Y-type path, the manager needs to be technically involved, as to:

• Monitor what the team is doing
• Work on short-, medium-, and long-term strategic and budgetary plans
• Deal with incidents
• Be able to evaluate employees’ performance

That’s why, beyond direct people management tasks, it’s important to have time to work on technical projects, even small ones, to stay up to date with technological changes.

Burnout risk

The situation can get worse for overburdened managers if their managers are not much more experienced than they are. Situations like this are frequent in companies where the workforce is very young. In such cases, it causes professionals to work 12-hour shifts to try to take care of everything. As this is not sustainable, they will eventually look for better opportunities and leave the company. Burnout and team inefficiency can directly result from an imbalance in team composition. In any company, the goal should be to increase productivity and reduce management overhead.

There are several ways to reduce management overhead, but one key point is undoubtedly rationalizing the number of direct reports under a leader. There is a limit to how many people a manager can directly lead, but there isn’t a universally ideal number.

There is a limit to how many people a manager can directly lead.

Span of control that is too small

In rapidly growing young companies, exceptional professionals may have been promoted too quickly, sometimes resulting in up to 25% of the workforce being composed of managers. In such a case, there would be a span of control of three (one manager for three direct reports). And one may even find more extreme cases where a manager only directs one other employee. 

Very small teams are a good solution, as they reduce the management burden on managers, who have fewer people to manage and, therefore, fewer administrative tasks. But the correlation is not direct. The very fact that someone is a manager already implies a series of duties that demand dedicated time —in other words, there is a management overhead inherent to the position. 

A lack of seniority makes the scenario even more worrying since inexperienced managers spend more time and energy leading teams. When people in such positions are consumed by management tasks, little time remains for technical contributions. All in all, this means an enormous productivity loss.

Anyone who manages technology teams is bombarded with problems every single day, regardless of the team size. When the person in charge of the team has the experience and know-how to act, time and energy are saved. An inexperienced manager, on the other hand, will probably need to pass on part of their burden to their top manager or mentor, consulting them on what to do, and the management overhead gets multiplied. And, if the inexperienced manager does nothing, a team conflict or technical problem goes unresolved and hampers productivity.