Span of control & coaching hours

Span of control — agents per team leader — is really a decision about how much coaching time each agent gets. Set the span and this tool shows the coaching minutes per agent per month it leaves once a team leader’s own admin and shrinkage are taken out, the team leaders you need, and what the layer costs.

Your numbers

Agents to support

Target span (agents / TL)

TL contracted hours / week

TL time available for coaching (%)

Coaching target (mins / agent / month)

TL cost / year (£, optional)

—

Team leaders
required

—

Coaching mins / agent
/ month

—

vs your
target

—

Management layer
cost / year

Coaching minutes per agent per month as the span widens — the dashed line is your target.

How it works

A team leader’s coaching capacity is their contracted hours minus everything that isn’t coaching — admin, escalations, meetings, their own breaks and absence. Divide what’s left by the span and you get the coaching time each agent can actually receive. Widen the span and that time falls fast; the chart shows how quickly meaningful coaching becomes a tick-box. Use it to set the span on purpose, and to show finance both sides of the trade-off: a wider span is a real saving that spends quality and retention. See span of control.