Span Of Control
What is The Ideal Number of People That
One Person Can Supervise?
TABLE OF CONTENTS
¬ Span Of Control Defined
o Definition
o Factors Affecting Span of Control
o Theoretical Consideration
¬ Army Operational Unit Diagram
¬ Article Excerpts “What is The Ideal Span of Control”
¬ Conclusion
Date of last update: 03-22-11
Comments? Send e-mail to [email protected]
Span of Control Defined
Back to Contents
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(This article has been modified from its original state; please access link to view in its entirety.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control
Span of control is a term originating in military organization theory, but now used more commonly in
business management, particularly human resource management. Span of control refers to the number of
subordinates a supervisor has.
In the hierarchical business organization of the past it was not uncommon to see average spans of 1 to 4 or
even fewer. That is, one manager supervised four employees on average. In the 1980s corporate leaders
flattened many organizational structures causing average spans to move closer to 1 to 10. That was made
possible primarily by the development of inexpensive information technology. As information technology
was developed with capability of easing many middle manager tasks – tasks like collecting, manipulating
and presenting operational information – upper managers found they could hire fewer middle managers to do
more work managing more subordinates for less money.
The current shift to self-directed cross-functional teams and other forms of non-hierarchical structures have
made the concept of span of control less significant.
The optimum span of control depends on numerous variables including organizational structure, available
technology, the functions being performed, and the competencies of the manager as well as staff. One
viewpoint is proposed by Elliott Jaques (1988) that a manager may have up to as many immediate
subordinates that they can know personally in the sense that they can assess personal effectiveness.
Factors affecting span of control
These are the factors affecting span of control:
1. Geographical Location, if the branches of a business are widely dispersed, then the manager will find
it difficult to supervise each of them, as such the span on control will be smaller.
2. Capability of workers, if workers are highly capable, and do not require much supervision and can be
left on their own, eg: need not be supervised much as they are motivated and take initiative to work,
as such the span of control will be wider.
3. Similarity of task, if the task that the subordinates are performing are similar, then the span of control
can be wider, as the manager can supervise them all at the same time. However, of course the
capability of the supervisor has to also be taken into consideration.
Theoretical Consideration
Graicunas (Gulick and Urwick, 1937) distinguished three types of interactions – direct single relationships,
cross-relationships, and direct group relationships – each of them contributing to the total amount of
interactions within the organization. According to Graicunas, the number of possible interactions can be
computed in the following way.
Let n be the number of subordinates reporting to a supervisor. Then, the number of relationships of direct
single type the supervisor could possibly engage into is
n.
The number of interactions between subordinates (cross relationships) he has to monitor is
n(n − 1)
Span Of Control – Page 2 of 6
and the number of direct group relationships is
n(2n / 2 + n − 1)
The sum of these three types of interactions is the number of potential relationships of a supervisor.
Graicunas showed with these formulas, that each additional subordinate increases the number of potential
interactions significantly. It appears natural, that no organization can afford to maintain a control structure of
a dimension being required for implementing a scalar chain under the unity of command condition.
Therefore, other mechanisms had to be found for dealing with the dilemma of maintaining managerial
control, while keeping cost and time at a reasonable level, thus making the span of control a critical figure
for the organization. Consequently, for a long time, finding the optimum span of control has been a major
challenge to organization design.
As Mackenzie (1978, p 121) describes it:
“One could argue that with larger spans, the costs of supervision would tend to be reduced, because a smaller
percentage of the members of the organization are supervisors. On the other hand, if the span of control is
too large, the supervisor may not have the capacity to supervise effectively such large numbers of immediate
subordinates. Thus, there is a possible trade-off to be made in an attempt to balance these possibly opposing
tendencies.”
It depends on the capabilities of the organizational members, managers and workers. It was assumed, that no
manager would be capable of supervising more than 5-6 direct subordinates. However, this conclusion built
on the assumption, that the superior must actively monitor the work of all subordinates.
Span Of Control – Page 3 of 6
Army Operational Unit Chart
Back to Contents
http://www.army.mil/info/organization/unitsandcommands/oud/
This is an example of Span of Control.
This diagram provides information on how Army operational units are organized - from the Theater Army,
Field Army and Army Group level, down through Corps, Divisions, Brigades, Battalions, Companies,
Platoons and ending with Squads & Sections - and the typical rank of the Commander of these type units.
Span Of Control – Page 4 of 6
Article Excerpts “What is The Ideal Span of Control”
Back to Contents
http://www.articleclick.com/Article/Ideal-Span-of-Control-in-an-organization/1078645
“Narrow span of control: Narrow Span of control means a single manager or supervisor oversees few
subordinates. This gives rise to a tall organizational structure.”
“Wide span of control: Wide span of control means a single manager or supervisor oversees a large number
of subordinates. This gives rise to a flat organizational structure.”
“There is an inverse relation between the span of control and the number of levels in hierarchy in an
organization, i.e., narrower the span, the greater is the number of levels in an organization.”
“In reality, the ideal span of control depends upon various factors, such as:
1. Nature of an organization.
2. Nature of job
3. Skills and competencies of manager
4. Employees skills and abilities
5. The kind of interaction that takes happens between superiors and subordinates, etc”
http://greatworkplace.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/how-many-employees-should-your-supervisors-manage/
“Three or four levels of reporting typically are sufficient for most organizations, while four to five are
generally sufficient for all organizations but the largest organizations (Hattrup, 1993). This is
consistent with ERC’s survey’s findings as well. An ideal span of control in an organization,
according to modern organizational experts is approximately 15 to 20 subordinates per supervisor
or manager. However, some experts with a more traditional focus believe that 5-6 subordinates per
supervisor or manager is ideal.”
http://www.economist.com/node/14301444
“Over the years, however, there have been so many differing views about the optimum span of control that
the unavoidable conclusion is that it is a matter of horses for courses. The ideal span is partly determined by
the nature of the work involved.”
“The contemporary view is that spans depend on both the industry a firm is in and the firm itself.”
“Spans of control can be deliberately enlarged by making workers more autonomous and more capable of
managing themselves. They can also be enlarged by increasing the number of rules and constraining the
freedom of junior employees to make mistakes. As a span of control gets larger, it exponentially (and
dramatically) increases the number of relationships among individuals within each management cell. One
manager and six subordinates, for instance, create 222 relationships among the seven of them; one manager
and 16 subordinates create over 500,000 relationships.”
Span Of Control – Page 5 of 6
Conclusion
Back to Contents
Span of Control should be calculated based on the various factors involved. These factors include the
capabilities of the employees on both levels. Obviously the more capable an employee is to work without
direction; the more opportunity for a larger number to be supervised under one manager.
If the current span of an organization is producing an overload on managers then it behooves the
organization to reconsider the span of control and do some restructuring. This is not a one size fits all answer
and can only be determined on a case by case basis.
Span Of Control – Page 6 of 6