Line span

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Under a management span or management span ( English span of control ) or steering span is understood in human resources to mean the number of employees directly subordinate to a management position , i. H. how many employees are hierarchically directly under a manager or an organization .

features

In general, it is not possible to determine an optimal size of the line span, although there are very different approaches to attempting to determine it. While there were earlier approaches that assumed an optimal line span at 8-10, these figures have now been discarded due to a lack of foundation. An exception applies to highly bureaucratic companies. There the optimal line span is still considered to be 4–10. The line span can vary widely within and between organizations. A management range should generally only be so large that it is always possible for a superior to control and coordinate well within this range. If, for example, a line span is too large, this leads to an overload of the line manager. As a result, the quality of work across the department suffers.

Examples

  • A company has 100 employees and another 10 managers. The leadership margin (with even personnel distribution) is 10.
  • 18 employees and 2 department heads work in one department. The leadership margin (with even staff distribution) is 9.

Synergies by changing the line span

The expansion of the management margin is often seen as an opportunity for savings. However, the expansion is associated with an additional burden on the manager (for example the group leader). The factor for the change in load can be determined using this rule of thumb: New employee / old employee × log ( new employee ) / log ( old employee ).

For example, if a manager has to look after ten employees instead of five after a reorganization, then the manager's workload increases not just by a factor of 2, but by a factor of 2.81. If the team expansion allows synergies, then the team's performance can also grow accordingly.

Merging groups that are already large is easier to cope with: For example, if the number of employees to be managed doubles from 50 to 100, this results in a factor of 2.22 for the increase in management workload.

Whether a change in the management span actually leads to synergies that are sufficient to compensate for the increased organizational effort must be carefully observed in practice in each individual case. It is also true that the increase in the management span at the lower management level initially reduces the complexity from the point of view of the management level above; however, this increases (from an information-theoretical point of view) the complexity in the lower management level. Complexity reduction by shifting complexity is therefore not a generally applicable method of being able to achieve savings.

Relationship between line span and line depth, line intensity

Under line depth refers to the number of hierarchical levels of management. If there are many hierarchical levels, one speaks of a steep structure. In contrast, one speaks of a flat structure (see Lean Management ) when there are few levels.

The line intensity expresses the numerical relationship between the line points and the execution points. However, it must be taken into account that staff units and assistant positions are counted among the management positions. Management intensity is very important and meaningful when assessing organizational structures .

How big a range can be depends mainly on two influencing factors: the qualitative and quantitative performance capacity of the superior . The quantitative performance capacity mainly refers to the time frame available in which the supervisor personally devotes himself to his management tasks. This personal handling of tasks by the superior represents the qualitative capacity . Another variable is the use of management relationships. It is made up of how often and for how long the individual employees need help and instructions from their supervisor.

The discussion of the optimal line span

  • As already mentioned above, it is bad if management spans are too great, as this can overwhelm the manager.
  • A small management margin is recommended if the superiors want to perform their coordination and control tasks well and can carry out their tasks with high quality thanks to a small management margin.
  • Small line spans have a great depth of detail. This results in a possibly manipulated flow of information .
  • Another disadvantage is a very steep line depth, as the flow of information is often interrupted due to the many hierarchical levels and therefore takes much longer to reach the goal.
  • A steep pipe depth can also have a filter function. It can happen that information is no longer complete, modified or falsified by the time it reaches its destination.

There is no such thing as an optimal line span. One should therefore determine the optimal line span for the respective company in each individual case, taking into account a wide variety of criteria . The criteria that can be used include the qualifications of the employees , the qualifications of the superiors or the variety of tasks to be performed.

Development to a high line span

The strength of a company is, among other things, the speed in decision-making, which is based on a rapid and undistorted exchange of information. In order to solve these problems, restructuring took place over time. The forms of organization were slimmed down and control organizations became trust organizations. The focus here was on the coordination and self-coordination of employees and the autonomy of the positions. This organizational change is made possible above all by the lower communication costs associated with e-mail and the Internet .

Problems of this development

  • Fewer career opportunities: The possibility of professional advancement is lower with flat hierarchies.
  • Decreasing employee motivation due to excessive demands: The coordination effort has increased due to the self-organization of the individual employees.
  • Disorientation of employees due to a large variety of tasks.
  • Risk of internal fraud from dismantled control bodies.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Management optimality versus organizational optimality of management spans (PDF; 121 kB)
  2. ^ Line span - Lexicon of Unternehmerinfo.de. Retrieved on May 21, 2019 (German).
  3. ↑ "At the ministerial level, for example, it was previously assumed that a department head could be assigned 4 to a maximum of 10 employees (...)." Source: Hans-Jürgen Schmidt: Business Administration and Administrative Management, facultas.wuv Universitätsverlag (UTB), Vienna 2009, p. 236
  4. ↑ Grün: Organization, in Scheuch (Ed.): Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Service Fachverlag, Vienna 1990, p. 480
  5. ^ Schulte-Zurhausen: Organization, 3rd edition, Verlag Franz Vahlen GmbH, Munich 2002, p. 226f
  6. ^ Schulte-Zurhausen: Organization, 3rd edition, Verlag Franz Vahlen GmbH, Munich 2002, p. 227