Data tells a story, and it can be difficult to argue with facts. Figure out what data you need to tell the story.
It is better to show data to back up your recommendations than to go to an executive meeting with just anecdotes, intuition, or gut instinct.
Employer: It feels like I am approving a promotion for employes to be Managers or Directors every other day. What should the span of control or the number of direct reports be for someone who is supervising others?
· Answer: Set a minimum of 6 direct reports to be considered a people manager. Someone who has 1 – 2 direct reports is not spending most of their work time supervising others. They are still an individual contributor and should have market pricing and job titles that align to that.
Employer: We want quicker decision making, streamlined processes, and to become more agile as a company. How can we best structure our organization for this outcome?
· Answer: Reduce the number of hierarchy layers between the CEO and front-line employees. Set targets on how many layers from a CEO a career level should be at. Then over time change your reporting relationships so the organization is flatter and has larger spans of control.
Employer: We’ve created career paths and employees have liked how often we promote them now. However, our labor costs are higher than they should be, and we need to have more insight into how we are moving forward with using our career levels. How do we ensure that our approach is aligned to business needs and our strategic goals?
· Answer: Determine how many employees you need in each career level. Then review the actual distribution versus the target distribution. Look at individual contributors and those that manage others.
Employer: We have too many employees with Manager, Director, and VP job titles. Where are all the individual contributors that are doing the work? We’ve got so many employees setting strategy and communicating different visions for the future that there is confusion and uncertainty on what to prioritize.
· Answer: Decide what your job titling standards are for each career level. Figure out where you have job titles that need to change to be in alignment with the job’s responsibilities and career level. Fix this over time so you can ensure that job titles are not over inflated or underrepresenting the work and expectations you have for a role.
And the workforce report below is an example about how you can use data to tell the story and encourage change that aligns to business goals.
What have I missed?
What have you done to manage labor costs with org design?
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