When Care Works Better Than Control

The whole concept of span of control came from military organizations and from the factory floors, back when management was way less complicated compared to what we see today. Managers in those days had a simple job – they would watch over their teams and make sure everyone got their work done when it needed to be done.

The model made plenty of sense back then because you could just walk around the office floor and see right away what everyone was working on. If a team member needed a quick correction or a short check-in, they were right there in front of you. Over time, most organizations landed on between 8 and 12 direct reports per manager, and it seemed to work well enough.

Remote work has changed the way managers check in with their teams. Everyone is working from different locations now, and quick visibility into what your entire team is doing is gone. In a traditional office setting, a manager could walk past someone’s desk and pick up on it if they seemed overwhelmed, stuck on a problem or if they might need a bit of help. With everyone being remote, that whole casual check-in method just doesn’t work the same way anymore.

The old management ratios that worked in traditional offices just don’t hold up when your entire team is spread across multiple time zones and home offices. Organizations like GitLab have been tracking this for years, and the data confirms that conventional span of control numbers usually fall apart in remote settings. A manager who comfortably oversaw 12 direct reports in person usually struggles to maintain that same capacity when everyone’s working remotely.

Span of care is a better concept for you to use when you’re figuring this out. But what matters more is if you can give each of them the level of support they actually need. Span of care is about having genuine conversations that matter with your entire team about their professional growth. You want to create a space where everyone feels safe enough to open up and talk about what’s actually going on with them – the wins and the challenges. You’ll need to invest time and consistent effort in figuring out what each person needs to move forward in their career. Every team member has different goals and different obstacles, and paying attention to where they want to go (and how you can help them get there) is a big part of what makes it work.

It takes a lot more work than the old approach ever did. One-on-ones can’t simply be about status updates and checking boxes anymore. A manager has to be able to see when a team member seems disengaged or frustrated with their work. And instead of just delegating tasks and waiting for results to come in, there’s a continued responsibility to actively coach your entire team and help them build new skills.

Why Remote Managers Work with Smaller Teams

Management books and business experts will usually tell you that a leader can manage well anywhere from 5 to 15 direct reports, and when teams are all located in the same office, this range tends to work out fairly well. Remote work does change the dynamic quite a bit, though, and those same numbers don’t necessarily hold up the same way anymore.

Buffer conducted research on remote management, and the findings paint a picture – the best range sits between 5 and 8 direct reports per manager. For perspective, that’s noticeably lower compared to what you’ll usually see recommended for traditional in-office teams. The main driver behind this difference is the communication overhead, and it multiplies when your entire team works from different locations instead of sharing the same physical office space.

A simple example shows just how different these two environments can be. A quick check-in with one of your team members in an office setting is pretty easy – you can just walk over to their desk or catch them in the break room for a few minutes. Remote work changes everything about this interaction. What used to take 30 seconds turns into a scheduling challenge where you’ll have to work around time zones and availability windows. You send them a message first, and then you wait to hear back. Eventually, you offer up a few different meeting times and hope that at least one of them lines up with both of your schedules.

Written communication is a lot more complex when everyone’s remote. Quick desk visits to sort something out are no longer an option, so every message has to carry more weight. Each email or message needs to pack in enough background information so the recipient understands what you’re asking for (or telling them). Most of us will read through our messages at least once or twice before hitting send, just to make sure that the point lands the way that we want it to. The recipient has to put in that same effort when they respond. A conversation that used to take maybe 30 seconds in person can stretch into 10 minutes or more of messaging.

Body language is one of the first aspects you lose when you manage a remote team. Those little signs that tell you someone is stressed or confused (the facial expressions, the posture changes, and the slight hesitation before they answer) just aren’t there anymore when your entire team is spread out. Technology has made it possible to keep in touch with team members across different cities or countries, and on the surface, that sounds like a big win for managers. In practice, though, those connections with your entire team take a lot more conscious effort to keep up when you’re all working remotely.

Every minute of their day gets eaten up by back-to-back video calls and a never-ending stream of messages to respond to. This leaves zero time to step back and see the bigger picture, and even less time to actually sit down and help team members work through tough problems. Their direct reports are stuck in limbo as they wait around for feedback and direction. Everything slows down to a crawl when one person has too much to handle at the same time.

Small Groups That Help Your Team

A few businesses have worked out how to spread that care and support across their teams without adding extra managers to the payroll. How it works is that they split up teams into smaller peer groups where members can support one another more. Notion has had great results with this model with what they call “care pods.”

Each pod has three or four members in it, and the groups meet up whenever it works best for everyone’s schedule. They get together to talk through whatever challenges come up and share advice with one another about how to take care of them. The main idea behind this whole setup is to create a dedicated space where members can get the support they need without always having to go through their manager for it.

Peer mentoring happens in these groups. When one person worked through a tough project last month, they’re in a great position to help another team member who’s facing that same challenge right now. New hires get paired up with a member from their pod, who becomes their first stop for the small questions that don’t need to bring in a manager. Teams can also rotate who leads each meeting, and it gives everyone a chance to practice their leadership skills.

The beauty of the whole setup is that it divides up the responsibility in a way that actually makes sense. Managers can still oversee eight or ten team members across their entire team, and it’s a manageable span. At the same time, each person gets their own smaller group that they can go to for help with the day-to-day issues. Where this pays off is for the manager – they’re no longer stuck solving every minor issue that pops up. They step back and work on the decisions and career development work that moves the team forward.

The pods aren’t designed to replace managers at all. What they cover is a different layer of support for your entire team. The best analogy is a sports team where you have a coach and teammates. The coach sets the strategy and helps you develop your skills over the long term. The teammates are right there on the field with you, and they help you get through everything that happens during the game.

Workplaces that make this switch report that their employees feel way less isolated than they did before. Each person has peers around them who get the work and can step in to help when it’s needed. Managers also say that they feel way less pressure, mostly because they’re no longer the only person that their team can go to for support. All that care and help spreads across the entire network – not through just one manager.

Remote Team Success

A remote team needs a different strategy for priorities, and it matters to get them right when everyone’s scattered across different locations. The best managers don’t waste their time trying to track every little task their team completes during the day. What actually moves the needle is to focus on whether each person feels supported and knows what they need to accomplish. When you make that switch, the whole team does better together in obvious ways. It takes some time to get used to this style, and it’s tougher for managers who’ve spent years leading teams face-to-face in a more direct way. Once they get comfortable with it, the team members get a lot more invested, and they’ll want to put in extra effort.

Remote work has its own set of challenges, and each needs a different way to solve them. It takes time and deliberate effort from everyone on the team to build genuine relationships, and that’s a big part of why smaller teams usually work out better when everyone’s spread out across different locations. Managers who figure this out early on usually wind up with teams that stay longer and produce stronger results.

The turning point comes when remote leaders are ready to rethink what real leadership actually looks like from a distance. A lot of managers who do this well have stepped back from constant check-ins, and instead, they work on creating an environment where their teams can succeed on their own. This depends on trust – to let your entire team take care of their workload, step in when they hit roadblocks and keep everyone connected to the mission. It takes some time to find the right balance. But it gets easier as you learn what works for you as a leader.

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