How many people do you supervise? How’s that working out for you?

[Anonymous]

I’ve seen people on other threads mention supervising 20+ people, which seems insane to me in most circumstances. Are those all direct reports? If you’re supervising that many peopl, is that all you do, or do you also have other responsibilities (project work, strategic planning, business development, etc.)?

I’m felling stretched supervising just four people, all of whom are good workers and reasonably independent. The time it takes to make sure they all have adequate work, stay abreast of the various things they are working on, review work products, guide through challenges, and deal with HR crap, in addition to all my other responsibilities, leaves me wondering how other people manage this. Perhaps that’s just due to the type of work we do (every project is different, and the people on my team have varied and ever changing responsibilities) but I’m curious how it looks in practice when somebody supervises that many people.

I’m also asking because it looks likely that I’ll soon be asked to lead a much bigger team and I’ll need to determine how to best structure that.

[Anonymous]

Three direct reports, two additional indirect reports, usually a couple of interns, and in total I manage a team of seven, which includes my boss. We have split responsibilities -- I do management and admin, my boss is the SME.

I do project management -- which includes scheduling, resource management (i.e. figuring out who to assign to what tasks for a project/across projects), client relations, knowledge management, business development, and intra-organizational communication. My boss supervises and directs the work product and provides direction on how to do the work, and she signs off on the final product.

If I were leading a team of 20, I'd look for 2-4 trusted individuals and have them lead smaller teams. Does your work lend itself to being split up that way? I'd also delegate some of the pieces to smaller working groups (which may not align perfectly with those teams). So for instance, you might have a gadget design team and a gadget engineering team -- but then you might also form a business development working group and tap a couple of people from each of those teams to be in that group. Then you delegate e.g. some of the research functions of business development to that smaller working group, and they report back to you on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Three direct reports, two additional indirect reports, usually a couple of interns, and in total I manage a team of seven, which includes my boss. We have split responsibilities -- I do management and admin, my boss is the SME.

I do project management -- which includes scheduling, resource management (i.e. figuring out who to assign to what tasks for a project/across projects), client relations, knowledge management, business development, and intra-organizational communication. My boss supervises and directs the work product and provides direction on how to do the work, and she signs off on the final product.

If I were leading a team of 20, I'd look for 2-4 trusted individuals and have them lead smaller teams. Does your work lend itself to being split up that way? I'd also delegate some of the pieces to smaller working groups (which may not align perfectly with those teams). So for instance, you might have a gadget design team and a gadget engineering team -- but then you might also form a business development working group and tap a couple of people from each of those teams to be in that group. Then you delegate e.g. some of the research functions of business development to that smaller working group, and they report back to you on a regular basis.

You aren’t managing a team of seven if one of those seven is your boss.

[Anonymous]

I have 7 direct reports. 5 on site and 2 off site. Plus, the work I had before I took this position. I am drowning.

[Anonymous]

0. Amazing.

In the past, I have had 15-35 DRs. 35 was a nightmare and everyone wondered why I burnt out and quit.

[Anonymous]

Seven. One works from home all the time. They are to tell me if they are short on work. We have a meeting each Monday to review all our current projects, where people are up to, and who is working on what, and loosely plan out the week.

I am doing other things besides managing. It seems easy to me, but everyone pulls their weight and works nicely together. We had a stumbling block a couple of months ago with one worker who is pregnant and was very sick and missing morning meetings and calls, but she agreed to accept what her body was doing and just shift her working hours later in the day for a while.

[Anonymous]

I have 18 direct reports (Civil Servants) and our organization has about 80 contractors.

It sucks. Leaving the position in June.

[Anonymous]

School administrator - I supervise about 80 people. It's a lot and I am expected to do it while also managing the children and their parents.

[Anonymous]

3

I supervise/manage, as well as do my own thing.
Managing well.

[Anonymous]

I've supervised up to 30 employees before, and as long as you're organized, a good leader, diplomatic, and you encourage independent thinking and teamwork, you'll be fine. What you don't want to do is be the kind of supervisor who has the attitude that "I'm the boss, so what I say goes." This leads to discouragement, grumbling and complaining, and a completely disorganized team. A good supervisor avoids this mindset.

[Anonymous]

1, and he’s a good one.

I’ve managed up to 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School administrator - I supervise about 80 people. It's a lot and I am expected to do it while also managing the children and their parents.

Same here. Work in a Title 1 school in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Had 10 plus at a previous job.

Have 3 now. Two in office, one remote. Much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School administrator - I supervise about 80 people. It's a lot and I am expected to do it while also managing the children and their parents.

Same here. Work in a Title 1 school in FCPS.

Private school administrator. Supervise 1 admin assistant, 19 faculty fully and an additional 20 faculty shared with other administrators (its a PS-12 school with cross-over teachers). Don’t know how you public school folks do it. I’m ready to go back to the classroom. I really dislike supervising people.

[Anonymous]

14