Line management and pay

[bonfireheart]

Should the number of people you line manage affect your pay or not?

For example:
Person A - line management of 8 people
Person B - line manages 2
Person C - line manages 3
Person D - line manages 1
Person E - line manages 0
Person F - line manages 0

Everything else about their work contracts is the same word for word.

Are the job title and job role the same for each person?

I’d say no

I do the same job as 4 other people identical job descriptions, all have different sized teams and yet are all paid the same.

Job title is the same. But for a different team if that makes sense. Without giving too much away, it would be like this
Manager (for dairy)
Manager (for fruit)
Manager (for sweets)

Even when the jobs were advertised they were advertised together in one advert, cos the skills, experience, knowledge etc etc is the same just in diff small teams.

My team is 10 and my pay is the same as a colleague who’s team is 2.

I'd also say no, unfortunately. I do an identical job (in title) to several others. We all have different size teams

No - it depends on your contribution. I line manage no one but still earn a lot more than people in my company who have upto 20 people under them.

If you line manage more people you naturally have to spend more time on actual line management and less time on other elements of your job. So, assuming the other elements of your job are valued the same as line management then, no, you shouldn't be paid any differently.

If someone is expected to do all the same things as everyone else and manage a bigger team, I'd expect the individual to point out that this is impossible to do to the same standard as someone with a smaller team, rather than trying to pursue more money.

@cliftongreenyork I get that, but is your job word for word the same as them?

Totally @UserAtRandom, we are expected to have weekly 1 to 1s with those we line manage. That's eight hours a week, out of a 35 hour working week. Then a whole team meeting for an hour. Then three separate department meetings a week. Then a weekly partnership meeting. In total that is 12 hours out of 35 hours....

Jeered writing that down has depressed me even more!!

Weekly 1-2-1s seems like overkill unless things are particularly fast changing and all the direct reports roles are different.

I have weekly with one person (who is particularly needy!)
And monthly (plus ad-hoc conversations as required) with the others. Plus team meetings.

But are you evaluating the 'hourly rate' for line managing someone as more than the rate for other elements of your job? If you are, then yes you should be paid more. But if you accept that line management is one of many facets of your job, then no. Unless you're being asked to work extra hours to fit the line management in.

I don't think this is feasible. The number of people i manage constantly flexes and changes. My salary cannot flex and change constantly with it. Its just not practical.

The more people you manage the more time it take up so the less time you have
For other duties. So pay need adjusting for that.

I think 8 is quite a small team and quite doable once you get into the swing of it. Ive had up to 50 before which is a challenge on top of other duties.

Id concur with pp that 1 hour a week for a 121 is a lot. If it needs to be weekly go 30 mins. But id be tempted
To do fortnightly for one hour. And do four one week and four the other. If people need more adjust it. As long as you make time for anyone struggling in between and are available that should be plenty.

Reassess all the meetings and only run those that add real value.

Where I work there are grades and they are quite set, you don't go up a grade just because you manage more people, therefore everyone within a grade is paid the same no matter how many people they manage. I'm currently not managing anyone (temporarily) and my equivalent colleagues within my department are managing 5 people (plus people under them). My pay hasn't changed, it's just the nature of my role (it's more technical, though I'd happily have some people under me to help if they offered!!)

It depends on how similar the teams are but even then I have team leaders managing teams of people who do the exact same job and those team leaders do not get the same pay as each other. It depends on their experience, when they joined, which years they've been here for pay review (some years there might be good increases, other years not), also what we might have needed to do at any point to retain them.

I also work with people who do not have anyone underneath them, I have hundreds, and I get the same / very similar pay to them (which I'm very jealous of as I become less and less fond of line mgmt the older and less patient I become )

Is it dictated that the weekly 1-2-1 has to be an hour? What on earth do you fill an hour with each week? If I had to have weekly 1-2-1 it would be no more than 10 mins, only more if there was a particular issue that needed addressing or discussing. An hour long meeting with a reportee or a boss to me would be an annual review.

Depends on company structure. If you care about line managees and how to progress their career, do proper yearly reviews and feedback, then it is a lot of work. Now you could do less other work (eg admin) and delegate those things. Or maybe as hr to make one of your line managees a line manager???

My old manager use to do one hour weekly one to one's it was bloody awful - she went over everything I did with a fine tooth comb. Bloody nightmare she was!

I've done weekly 1:1s with the people I line manage (granted, there are only 5, so I do one a day) since lockdown began. We all wfh and the nature of our work means we often work independently and I don't otherwise necessarily come much into contact with them. Some weeks it's just a quick 5 minutes catch up; other weeks we might be an hour. I was hoping to decrease the frequency (we met 2 or 3 weekly when we were in the office) but all the staff have told me they value a weekly catchup and have asked to keep it. (I have to admit my own manager has gone the other way and we only have 1:1s every 2 or 3 months which is far too infrequent and I am annoyed by it).
However ... line management is just one of the tasks I have to complete. The more time I spend on line management, the less I spend on my other tasks. People at the same level as me who spend less time on line management spend more on other tasks assigned to them. So we're all working equally hard. It depends on whether you see line management as a task worthy of more money than other tasks that people at that level carry out, I suppose.

No, not necessarily. I think pay should reflect the overall level of responsibility in a role. The number of people line managed will feed into this, but it isn't the only factor at all.

I agree that weekly 1 to 1s with a line manager seems slightly excessive! I meet my line manager for an appraisal once a year! (That's probably too far the other way.)

So what happens realistically about the fact that one person spends more of their time on lines management than the others at the same level? Do they work extra hours unpaid, or do they all work 35 hours but their time is just spent differently? If it's the latter I'm not sure they need to be paid more?

Cut your 1-1s to 30 mins and also see if you can shave 15 mins off the other meetings too.

Do you have to do exactly the same job as those without line management PLUS your LM duties?