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. 

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?

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.

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.

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:

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.

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?

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.