Caio Ferreira, Rafael Pedrosa and Eduardo Bentivoglio
- Spans refer to the breadth of control — that is, the number of direct reports per manager — while Layers refer to the number of hierarchical levels within an organization.
- EloGroup’s leadership archetypes guide organizational redesign, aligning autonomy, efficiency, and strategy across different functions and contexts.
- Automation and generative AI enable wider Spans, reducing hierarchical layers and bringing leaders closer to execution for faster results.
As organizations scale, their structures often fail to keep pace. New hierarchical layers emerge, career tracks multiply, and roles begin to overlap — all without clear rationale or intentional design. Instead of appointing leaders based on genuine team needs, positions are created to justify pre-existing leadership roles, with no real value generation involved. The result is a widening gap between strategic direction and execution: decisions take too long to reach the front line, autonomy at the operational level remains low, and productivity falls short of its potential.
Understanding Spans & Layers in this context is critical to organizational success, as they are the building blocks of structural efficiency — and optimizing them is an act of balance. In short, Span of Control is the number of direct reports a manager oversees. A wider Span (more direct reports) promotes a flatter organization but may increase managerial workload and reduce a leader’s effectiveness. Layers, on the other hand, represent the number of hierarchical levels. Too many layers result in longer reporting lines, which delay decision-making and communication. Excessive layering creates bureaucratic bottlenecks that drive up costs and undermine transparency and effectiveness.
With the advancement of automation, generative AI, and new hybrid work models, the review of Spans & Layers is returning to the center of the executive agenda. The challenge lies in rethinking how teams are organized in light of these technologies, aligning organizational design with value delivery, and promoting agility in decision-making and productivity.
The approach: looking beyond the Org Chart
When seeking to establish minimum guidelines for the evolution of their structures, many organizations try to define “magic numbers” for Span of Control — that is, the ideal number of direct reports a leader can effectively manage. At EloGroup, however, we consider it essential to go further, assessing dimensions such as activity standardization, geographic footprint, degree of specialization and autonomy, intensity of stakeholder interaction, and decision-making profile.
By cross-referencing these dimensions, we identify leadership archetypes that guide the optimal configuration of Spans & Layers. This allows us to replace the “one-size-fits-all” model with an organizational design that respects the nature of each function and maximizes its performance. To achieve the required analytical depth, the diagnostic must rely on formal metrics that evaluate structural complexity — reflecting, for example, how workloads are distributed among managers, the number of employees a leader influences indirectly through other supervisors, the percentage of employees who have at least one direct report, among other criteria.
EloGroup's Span & Layers archetypes
These archetypes help us understand why some functions may require more layers, while others can operate with flatter structures. They also reveal where the most critical Span deviations lie.
Standardized Process
This archetype applies to functions that perform transactional, highly repetitive activities — such as call centers and mature Shared Services Centers (SSCs). Work is organized around well-defined processes, scripts, and procedures. Interfaces with other areas are few and low in complexity, as standardization reduces the need for constant alignment.
Recommended Span of Control: 10 to 15 direct reports (expandable in areas with higher process maturity).
High Capillarity
Functions with broad geographic distribution or significant regional presence — such as field sales forces or nationwide retail operations — typically fall under this archetype. Leaders manage geographically dispersed teams, with activities that vary by local context and a focus on ensuring coverage across regions. Interfaces involve multiple territories, diverse audiences, and frequent adaptation to specific operational realities.
Recommended Span of Control: 7 to 15 direct reports (expandable in areas with higher process maturity).
Corporate-Functional
This archetype covers administrative or corporate support areas — such as accounting, procurement, and talent acquisition — where work blends operational tasks with analytical and solution-building activities. Interface complexity is moderate, as these functions must integrate information from various areas while ensuring compliance with policies and regulations. The design seeks to balance operational efficiency with process proximity, avoiding excessive layers that could hinder communication.
Recommended Span of Control: 8 to 10 direct reports.
Specialist-Articulator
Advisory or expertise-driven areas — such as Strategy, Investor Relations, or M&A — fall under this archetype. Activities are largely unstructured, highly complex, and require frequent engagement with senior internal and external stakeholders. Professionals act as bridges between strategy and execution, influencing decisions and shaping transformation agendas. The focus is on preserving the quality of interaction and allowing leaders to dedicate time to technical development and cross-functional influence.
Recommended Span of Control: 4 to 7 direct reports.
Hybrid Structures
Some functions combine characteristics from the archetypes above, integrating operational tasks, regional demands, and advisory requirements. These are common in complex operations, multifunctional technical roles, or contexts where leaders oversee other leaders. In such cases, there is no single rule — the recommendation is to assess the predominance of each characteristic and adjust Layers and Span of Control accordingly.
Recommended Span of Control: 6 to 10 direct reports.
The transformation: redesigning structure based on what matters
Historically, Span & Layers redesign has been seen primarily as a cost-cutting exercise. But this view is limited. Leaner, more intelligently designed structures are also catalysts for productivity, speed, and engagement.
By redesigning Spans with rigor and intentionality, organizations can simplify operations, eliminate unnecessary layers, bring leadership closer to the front line, and free up resources to invest in other strategic priorities. With the advancement of automation and generative AI, part of the task-supervision burden is being absorbed by systems, enabling leaders to shift from controllers to contextual decision-makers. Technology extends management capacity, allowing wider Spans without loss of visibility.
The archetype-based lens not only supports the definition of a target model but also instills discipline in decisions around new leadership positions and the creation of new areas — bringing greater clarity and structure to organizational evolution.
Implementation can be phased, and results tend to emerge quickly:
- Reduction of hierarchical levels in key areas, shortening the path from strategy to decision.
- Reorganization of leadership scopes, driving greater accountability for leaders and their teams.
- Rationalization of job titles and career tracks, with progression based on impact rather than tenure-driven promotion.
Conclusion
Many companies treat their organizational structure as something fixed — almost immutable. In practice, however, it should evolve alongside strategy, culture, and work models. Across numerous engagements, we have seen that the right structure unlocks value, and its optimization becomes a measurable performance catalyst. Organizations with fewer hierarchical layers make faster decisions and achieve shorter innovation cycles. To ensure that the right structure unlocks value, recurring analyses should guide organizational design decisions, replacing purely financial and reactive adjustments.
Leading companies are already leveraging organizational health monitoring tools to redesign structures based on real interaction data. Analytical solutions enable organizations to visualize their current structure, analyze layers and Spans of Control, and identify opportunities for efficiency and cost savings — ensuring that the resulting design aligns with business objectives. At EloGroup, we support organizations in finding this balance through deep analytical rigor, organizational sensitivity, and a methodology tested across dozens of engagements.
CAIO FERREIRA is a Case Leader at EloGroup
RAFAEL PEDROSA is a Partner at EloGroup
EDUARDO BENTIVOGLIO is a Senior Writer and Editor at EloInsights
