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It was obvious while I was a student that the ratio of administrators to faculty was ridiculous. And the growth rate ratio between them was 3:1. At no point was

It was obvious while I was a student that the ratio of administrators to faculty was ridiculous. And the growth rate ratio between them was 3:1. At no point was it clear to me what real value they were adding. I was the captain of a more capital and real-estate intensive than average student group, and it was absolutely infuriating to try to figure out how to get anything done. There was always some new bureaucrat condensing out of the ether who needed to be appeased. No meant no, but a yes was never enough. To be quite honest, I see the same thing in my professional work. Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. And heads make work, justifying more heads. Further, those heads want to get promoted, so they make-work to justify that too. And to compound the problem, people try to magnify their power and impact by becoming gatekeepers. More people to say no and more overhead and drag to every action. It's unfortunately difficult to ask and to honestly answer why we do things and whether those things are worthwhile. It's even harder to take corrective action even if you admit that what you're doing is not worthwhile. I think it's one of the pillars of cost disease that is nibbling away the on-the-ground productivity of Western societies.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
vkou 6y ago
> Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. Take two teams, one with 6 people that produce a lot of value, and one with 50 people that produce... Let's say the same amount of value. When the manager of the team with 6 people, in the same org, starts getting paid three times more than the manager of the team of 50, you'll stop seeing managers fight for headcount. All of the economic incentives in the workplace lead to bloat, because people aren't paid for value added - they are paid market rate. The market rate for a manager of 50 people is higher than the market rate of a manager of 6 people. It's like the gripe that engineers have in firms that don't have an engineering career track for vertical advancement. Good engineers are pushed into becoming managers, because that's the only way they can get rewarded. Likewise, managers are pushed into becoming managers of larger teams, because that's the only way they can get rewarded.
- hagy 6y ago
  I agree, but quantifying value add is very hard. If we were just comparing small companies against each other then it would be straightforward to just look at each companies profit. But when you look at a team within a company, how can we say what that teams value add is? Say we considered a simplified case and focused on a single engineering team that is solely responsible for a single product. Just looking at the revenue generated by that product is insufficient since it excludes the contributions of sales, marketing, business development, etc. in driving that revenue. And practice most engineering teams are dependent on other engineering teams for providing shared services and infrastructure. Its also insufficient to just consider current revenue of a product. We also need to consider the potential future gains from a product, which is unknown. And quantifying value add gets even harder when we start looking at individual people. Considering individual contributor engineers, there are numerous ways that one can contribute, ranging from developing new features, diagnosing and fixing bugs, writing and updating documentation, mentoring, interviewing candidates, etc.
- T-hawk 6y ago
  > Good engineers are pushed into becoming managers, because that's the only way they can get rewarded. And there's a second-order casualty of that: the people who are assigned to report to such an engineer-become-manager. This happened to me on my previous job. The most brilliant programmer I've ever worked with got promoted to a manager, for the dumb reason that the company's programmer salary bands didn't go high enough for what he was (way more than) worth. As a manager he had to have headcount reporting to him, and I got assigned to be one of that headcount. He had no interest in people-managing. I didn't begrudge him for that at all - but it was clear my own career would go nowhere reporting to someone with no interest in managing, so I left that job shortly after.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Padding certainly happens. The 'tech innovation incubator' at my college has a professional administrator. I worked in the same building. He had an office at the end of the hall, door open all the time. He came in (late) every morning with a pile of newspapers. Sat at his desk all day, reading all of them. Went home (early) having done precisely nothing. Got paid many times what faculty got paid.
malandrew 6y ago
> To be quite honest, I see the same thing in my professional work. Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. If this were the only reason, the invisible hand of the market would address this problem most of the time. Add too many administrators that add no value and you end up with a higher cost structure than your competitors and are not able to provide the same value. Most of the time people demand more headcount because (1) they actually need more headcount to get the work done or (2) regulatory burdens force you to hire more headcount to deal with the regulations. We're increasingly moving to a world where (2) happens more and more. A good example on college campuses are things like campus police and kangaroo courts that deal with issues that should have been referred directly to city/state/federal law enforcement and the justice system.
- hagy 6y ago
  Regular market forces don't hold for college tuition for a number of reasons. Chief among these being that many students are paying with loans. Secondly, some students and their families view education as a veblen good, whereby higher price implies even higher value.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    I know that. I wasn't addressing college. The OP was talking about in his profession, which I think was safe to assume was a different industry/profession.
WalterBright 6y ago
That's why companies grow to a certain point, and then start failing.
- stephen_cagle 6y ago
  Fortunately, in the United States we have figured out how to avoid failure by continuously bailing out companies that get too large. So we fixed that.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    The bankruptcy laws changed to allow bankrupt companies to continue operating and "emerge" from bankruptcy. I don't think this is an improvement.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

vkou 6y ago

> Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. Take two teams, one with 6 people that produce a lot of value, and one with 50 people that produce... Let's say the same amount of value. When the manager of the team with 6 people, in the same org, starts getting paid three times more than the manager of the team of 50, you'll stop seeing managers fight for headcount. All of the economic incentives in the workplace lead to bloat, because people aren't paid for value added - they are paid market rate. The market rate for a manager of 50 people is higher than the market rate of a manager of 6 people. It's like the gripe that engineers have in firms that don't have an engineering career track for vertical advancement. Good engineers are pushed into becoming managers, because that's the only way they can get rewarded. Likewise, managers are pushed into becoming managers of larger teams, because that's the only way they can get rewarded.

hagy 6y ago
I agree, but quantifying value add is very hard. If we were just comparing small companies against each other then it would be straightforward to just look at each companies profit. But when you look at a team within a company, how can we say what that teams value add is? Say we considered a simplified case and focused on a single engineering team that is solely responsible for a single product. Just looking at the revenue generated by that product is insufficient since it excludes the contributions of sales, marketing, business development, etc. in driving that revenue. And practice most engineering teams are dependent on other engineering teams for providing shared services and infrastructure. Its also insufficient to just consider current revenue of a product. We also need to consider the potential future gains from a product, which is unknown. And quantifying value add gets even harder when we start looking at individual people. Considering individual contributor engineers, there are numerous ways that one can contribute, ranging from developing new features, diagnosing and fixing bugs, writing and updating documentation, mentoring, interviewing candidates, etc.
T-hawk 6y ago
> Good engineers are pushed into becoming managers, because that's the only way they can get rewarded. And there's a second-order casualty of that: the people who are assigned to report to such an engineer-become-manager. This happened to me on my previous job. The most brilliant programmer I've ever worked with got promoted to a manager, for the dumb reason that the company's programmer salary bands didn't go high enough for what he was (way more than) worth. As a manager he had to have headcount reporting to him, and I got assigned to be one of that headcount. He had no interest in people-managing. I didn't begrudge him for that at all - but it was clear my own career would go nowhere reporting to someone with no interest in managing, so I left that job shortly after.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Padding certainly happens. The 'tech innovation incubator' at my college has a professional administrator. I worked in the same building. He had an office at the end of the hall, door open all the time. He came in (late) every morning with a pile of newspapers. Sat at his desk all day, reading all of them. Went home (early) having done precisely nothing. Got paid many times what faculty got paid.

malandrew 6y ago

> To be quite honest, I see the same thing in my professional work. Everyone feels that their problems deserve more headcount. If this were the only reason, the invisible hand of the market would address this problem most of the time. Add too many administrators that add no value and you end up with a higher cost structure than your competitors and are not able to provide the same value. Most of the time people demand more headcount because (1) they actually need more headcount to get the work done or (2) regulatory burdens force you to hire more headcount to deal with the regulations. We're increasingly moving to a world where (2) happens more and more. A good example on college campuses are things like campus police and kangaroo courts that deal with issues that should have been referred directly to city/state/federal law enforcement and the justice system.

hagy 6y ago
Regular market forces don't hold for college tuition for a number of reasons. Chief among these being that many students are paying with loans. Secondly, some students and their families view education as a veblen good, whereby higher price implies even higher value.
- malandrew 6y ago
  I know that. I wasn't addressing college. The OP was talking about in his profession, which I think was safe to assume was a different industry/profession.

WalterBright 6y ago

That's why companies grow to a certain point, and then start failing.

stephen_cagle 6y ago
Fortunately, in the United States we have figured out how to avoid failure by continuously bailing out companies that get too large. So we fixed that.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  The bankruptcy laws changed to allow bankrupt companies to continue operating and "emerge" from bankruptcy. I don't think this is an improvement.