Span of Control

• The larger an organization, the more management layers it has.

• In both cases, span of control is present to properly manage all layers of the organization.

• The Span of Control is the number of employees a manager can supervise as effectively as possible.

• The addition of new hierarchical layers makes the organizational structure steeper.

• A large Span of Control leads to a flatter organizational structure, which results in lower costs.

• A small span of control creates a steeper organizational structure, which requires more managers and which will consequently be more expensive for the organization.

• It is therefore useful for an organization if its managers have a large span of control.

Increasing Span of Control

• When a manager supervises a large number of employees, he often has little time to align activities and monitor the quality of how activities are executed.

• Every situation needs to be assessed individually based on factors that determine the span of control.

• If a situation arises in which a supervisor manages too many employees, there are several ways for finding a solution to increase the Span of Control:Training the manager, teaching him management skills such as delegating and clear communication.

• Training employees, teaching them to work independently and make better use of their time.

• Delegation by the manager, decreasing his workload and improving the division of labour.

• Improving procedures and systems; when procedures take up a lot of time, it is a good idea to find efficient solutions with the help of the management team.

• Assigning a personal assistant, who can take over routine activities, reducing the manager's workload.

Span of Control example

• First is a situation with a manager with years of experience leading a team of approximately 40 people.

• Problems arise when his team is reduced to 20 people as a result of cutbacks.

• The second situation involves a manager who is used to leading a team of about five employees.

• He will experience stress when he is made responsible for a group of 20 people.

• But when problems or conflicts arise, the manager needs to be there for all 20 of his subordinates.

• The situation becomes more complicated for the manager when the majority of the 20 employees are not able to function independently.

• The manager will be confronted with his own lack of delegating skills.