What a Second Opinion on Your Hiring Structure Actually Looks Like

Key Takeaways:

• Gallup’s most recent workplace data found the average manager now oversees 12.1 direct reports, up nearly 50% since Gallup started tracking the number in 2013
• Manager engagement peaks at 8 to 9 direct reports and drops off on both sides of that range, according to the same Gallup research
• McKinsey’s organizational design work describes a common failure pattern: instead of redesigning a role, companies bolt extra responsibilities onto the person they want to keep
• A structural audit usually surfaces role overlap and unclear decision rights before it surfaces a talent gap. Most teams do not need more people. They need clearer ones
• Colombia’s professional talent market is built around narrowly defined, specialized roles, which makes it easier to split a bloated generalist position than to stack more onto it

Bottom line:
A second opinion on your hiring structure rarely tells you to hire more people. It tells you where the structure itself is creating the problem you were trying to hire your way out of.

Ask a leader how many people report to a given manager, and they will usually give a confident number. What that number does not tell you is whether decisions move quickly, whether feedback actually reaches the team, or whether anyone can describe a clear path forward.

Gallup’s most recent research on span of control found the average manager now oversees 12.1 direct reports, up from 10.9 just a year earlier and nearly 50% higher than when Gallup first measured the figure in 2013. Manager engagement, according to the same research, peaks at 8 to 9 direct reports and declines on either side of that range.

That gap between the average and the healthy range is usually where a structural audit starts finding problems. A minority of oversized teams pulls the average up while individual managers quietly absorb workloads no single person was designed to carry.

The Real Problem Is Coordination, Not Headcount

The instinct when a team is underperforming is to add a person. McKinsey’s research on organizational design points to a different, more common failure. Rather than redesigning a role that has outgrown its scope, companies keep the person they want to retain and bolt additional responsibilities onto their existing title. The result is a role that no longer maps to how the business creates value, expanded piece by piece until nobody can fully describe what it covers.

That pattern compounds. The number of direct reports a manager carries is not the real issue on its own. What matters is whether that manager still has the structure and support to make decisions move, give real feedback, and help people grow. A wide span with the wrong structure underneath it is not efficiency. It is a bottleneck wearing an org chart.

Why Colombia Makes Role Redesign Realistic

Once an audit identifies a role that has absorbed too much scope, the honest fix is usually to split it, not staff around it. That only works if both of the resulting roles are actually hireable.

This is where Colombia’s talent market changes what is realistic. Filta’s 2026 Salary Guide, built from live placements across Bogota and Medellin, shows just how granular the market already is: Senior Graphic Designer, Motion Graphics Designer, Digital Producer, and Executive Digital Producer are distinct, separately priced roles rather than variations of the same generalist job.

A US, Australian, UK, New Zealand, or Canadian company untangling a role that has quietly absorbed design, production, and project coordination does not have to invent that separation. The Colombian market already prices it that way.

What a Structural Audit Actually Involves

A real structural audit starts by mapping what each role is actually doing against what its title says it does, not the other way around. It asks where decisions get stuck waiting on one overloaded person, and whether that bottleneck is a skills gap or a structure gap.

Those are different problems with different fixes. Treating a structure gap like a skills gap is how companies end up hiring the wrong role to solve the right problem. It also means being willing to hear that the fix is not another hire at all. Sometimes the honest finding is that two existing roles should be recombined, or that a manager’s span needs to shrink before anything else improves.

What Filta Looks for Before Recommending a Hire

Filta treats that honest assessment as the actual starting point. Before assuming the answer is a new hire, Filta works through what the structure genuinely needs and points toward Colombia or the Philippines only when a specialized role legitimately calls for it.

A second opinion is only useful if it is willing to say the answer is not more headcount. That is what a real workforce review looks like.

Book a free strategy session with Filta to talk through what an honest look at your hiring structure would actually surface.

Filta is a globally recognized outsourcing & EOR partner, established in 2016 and headquartered in Australia, helping businesses across the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia build dedicated offshore teams in the Philippines and Colombia.