BEFORE YOU HIRE
Before you hire an Assistant Manager, try this first
When a manager becomes overwhelmed, adding another manager can feel like the obvious next step. Before adding another layer of payroll, determine what is actually consuming the manager's time.
THE PROBLEM
Management capacity is not always the problem
Your manager is overwhelmed. Things fall through the cracks. Employees need too much supervision. Administrative work keeps piling up.
The obvious answer is often to hire an assistant manager.
It may also be one of the most expensive ways to solve the problem.
01 / AUDIT
Find out what the manager is actually doing
A manager can be busy all day without spending most of that day managing. The first step is separating the work that actually requires management authority from everything else.
For one or two weeks, look at where the manager's time goes. Most of the work will fall into four categories.
Management work
- Coaching employees
- Performance management
- Staffing decisions
- Difficult customer issues
- Accountability
- Prioritization
Administrative work
- Scheduling
- Routine reporting
- Data entry
- Ordering
- Document preparation
- Routine emails
Frontline work
- Covering breaks
- Opening or closing
- Routine employee questions
- Basic customer issues
- Training routine tasks
- Shift coordination
Broken-process work
- Correcting repeated mistakes
- Chasing missing information
- Entering information twice
- Manually compiling reports
- Fixing preventable scheduling problems
- Reminding people about routine tasks
If a large part of the manager's week is spent on work that does not require management authority, you may not have a management-capacity problem.
02 / REMOVE
Spend money removing work before adding another salary
An assistant manager is a recurring payroll commitment. Before making that commitment, ask whether a smaller one-time investment could permanently remove part of the workload.
That might mean improving scheduling, simplifying reports, eliminating duplicate entry, fixing a recurring workflow, outsourcing a specialized administrative task, cleaning up software, or documenting a process employees repeatedly ask about.
The goal is not to automate everything. The goal is to stop paying managers to repeatedly compensate for avoidable operational friction.
Illustrative assistant manager salary
$50,000 / year
One-time systems and workflow improvement
$4,000
Additional annual compensation for a lead
$4,000
First-year savings in this example
$42,000
This example is illustrative, not a recommended compensation structure. Actual salaries, implementation costs, payroll burden, and appropriate lead compensation vary by business and market.
03 / DELEGATE
Create a lead before you create another manager
A capable employee can often take responsibility for a defined set of frontline duties while the manager retains management authority.
A lead might handle opening and closing, routine questions, new employee training, shift coordination, basic quality checks, minor customer issues, or escalation of recurring problems.
The employee should be compensated for the additional responsibility, and the boundaries of the role should be clear. This creates an advancement opportunity while giving the manager more capacity for work that actually requires management authority.
04 / DISTRIBUTE
If one lead is not enough, another lead may still be better than another manager
A growing team does not always need a deeper hierarchy. Sometimes responsibility can be distributed more effectively across the people already there.
Instead of placing one assistant manager between the manager and everyone else, two leads can take responsibility for different shifts, teams, functions, or operating areas.
Frontline team
Frontline team
This structure is not universally better. Its advantage is that it can distribute responsibility without automatically creating another layer of management.
It also creates more than one visible advancement opportunity for employees who are ready to take on additional responsibility.
05 / REASSESS
Then look at what is still on the manager's plate
Once unnecessary work has been removed, systems have been improved, routine duties have been delegated, and strong employees have been given appropriate responsibility, reassess the manager's workload.
If the manager is still overloaded primarily with coaching, performance management, staffing decisions, supervision, customer escalations, and other legitimate management work, then the business may actually need additional management capacity.
At that point, hiring another manager becomes a much more defensible decision.
WHEN IT DOES MAKE SENSE
Sometimes you really do need another manager
An assistant manager should solve a genuine management-capacity problem, not absorb operational inefficiency.
01
Operating hours substantially exceed what one manager can reasonably cover.
02
Multiple shifts require someone with actual management authority.
03
The number of direct reports has become difficult for one manager to coach and supervise effectively.
04
The existing manager already spends most of their time doing legitimate management work.
05
The business needs reliable management coverage when the primary manager is absent.
06
Different departments, locations, or operating areas genuinely require separate oversight.
07
The role is intentionally being used to develop a future manager or successor.
THE DECISION
Don't hire hierarchy to compensate for bad operations
Before adding another management salary, determine why your current manager is overloaded.
Remove work that should not exist, move work that does not require a manager, improve the systems creating recurring problems, and give capable employees meaningful responsibility where it makes sense.
Then reassess the remaining management workload and hire additional management only when the work actually requires it.
BEFORE YOU ADD ANOTHER SALARY
Find out what is actually creating the workload
Aubrenne can review the roles, systems, workflows, and management structure behind the problem before you commit to another permanent position.
Book a call