Is Your Org Structure Top-Heavy?

I recently had a customer tell me they felt their go-to-market (GTM) team was beginning to feel “very top-heavy”. They were concerned there were too many VPs and Senior Directors in place. 

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What are the org chart benchmarks for senior leadership roles on GTM teams? And what about other departments, like R&D or G&A? Are certain functions more hierarchical than others?

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Let’s explore Pave’s dataset to understand more. As it turns out, whether an organization is top-heavy depends on the function and stage. 

Org Chart Benchmarks

We analyzed 2,980 analyzed tech companies in Pave’s dataset, looking at the average percentage of employees who are Director-level and above as a proxy for how top-heavy an org is.

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G&A orgs tend to be the most top-heavy, followed closely by GTM, while R&D orgs tend to be the least top-heavy.

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The findings also show that company stage matters. Org charts tend to become less top-heavy as companies get larger, and this trend is consistent across all functions.

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Is your org chart top-heavy?

How does your company stack up? If your org chart feels top-heavy compared to these benchmarks, it’s possible that:

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1. You May be Over-leveling Your Senior Leaders

Are your “Directors”, “Heads of”, and “VPs” actually performing at their requisite levels? It might be worth reexamining your job levels.

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2. Your Org Chart May be Too Hierarchical

The latest org chart design mantra is “Flatter is faster, leaner is better.” Are there opportunities to streamline layers at your company and/or within your top-heavy functions?

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Make sure to review span of control benchmarks (i.e. number of direct reports) as an additional method to evaluate the health of your org chart. A Pave analysis found that the average span of control benchmarks range from an average of 4.1 direct reports per C-level executive to 5.4 per M3 manager. 

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