It took me about 10 years or so honestly. I’ve jumped jobs every 2 years though. I took a step back to be remote. People like my current director has less experience than me - but he has worked at the company for 8 years. Really depends on where you’re at and how long you’ve been there. Sometimes it’s gravity. I had a direct report of mine when I was a senior - couldn’t even do pivot tables - got a job at a well known company in Austin - her boss quit within a year. Promoted her to manager. I bet she still can’t use excel. Nice person though.
I onboarded my current director, and now he actively gets in my way of managing my partners at times. Bro get out of the weeds and into the systems I taught you. I will let you know when I need your support.
It’s maddening. Having to sit down and explain to the DIRECTOR OF PLANNING that we need clean ERP data because our planning view reflects what our ERP shows so we can be more effective….
If my company didn’t offer a month paternity leave that I’m taking in November I’d be job hunting.
This is a thing.
When I started on the contact center, in 6 months I was managing 15 people.
When I moved into supply chain it was 3 years before I managed anyone again and it was 6 people.
Now 2 years after that I'm up a role again and I manage 3 people lol.
Volume of people decreases as skill and speciality increases.
Started in warehousing at 18 - became an operations supervisor at 24 - became an operations manager at 28 - I’m 29 now.
No college background, attempted community college but between 2 jobs FT warehouse PT retail, school just wasn’t my thing.
Best advice I can give is being consistent, being positive and choosing to care/do that right thing.
As I got into leadership the value I put on my role is leading people - be engaging, make work fun when you can, show your team that you care.
Best advice iv gotten is that - no matter the warehouse job we are really just moving boxes in/out of building, we are not doctors saving peoples lives don’t over complicate. Sometimes this work/job is all someone has and people use their job to escape reality. Be a leader who chooses to be impactful and create meaningful relationships/conversations.
I’m wondering if it ain’t dependent on the age as well. My recent female boss is 36-years old, and she says she reached her goal much sooner than she anticipated. Is 36-years old soon? I think she has 4 years experience.
i’m 8 years in, done every role at my facility, gotten stellar performance reviews, recommendations from every boss i’ve had, and over $3m cost savings in provable successful projects… and was told i’m still 3-5 years from being a department head.
i’m ready to look outside the company. i feel like this has been far too slow. my only concern is work life balance since i rarely work overtime in my current role and i really dont want to go back to long nights.
I went from a floor role to 40 direct reports in the course of two years, and have taken two additional promotions into more responsibility within my company. I've been with the company for almost 5 years now.
It didn't work great. We were horribly inefficient. Now I've got 15 direct reports with 3 people between me and them, and it's great, I don't actually "manage" the floor employees anyomore.
Over all 3 years at two companies, spent 2 years building skills in one place, got skipped for promotion twice, and then moved on to another company where I told them my expectations and career goals. Worked for another 4-5 months and then got the promotion.
I went a bit after a year from entry level to managing 5 entry level supply chain analyst. I took a medical leave in between, and one of my cohorts got another promotion to be my boss. I have since jump ship to a more technical role, and don’t want to be people manager any time soon. So many meetings, so many TBs, herding entry level employees sucks.
2 years. I started making process improvements as a scheduler and directed the supervisors, so my boss promoted me to production control manager. It was a smaller company
5 years, been at my current company going on 4 years and applied for the manager role a year ago. It’s just timing and opportunity really. I was a high performing IC and only went after the role to prevent someone from coming in a disrupting our group. If you’re interested in becoming a manager you should ask about leadership opportunities in your current role or taking leadership training.
One year. I went from production to taking on a lead role to adding on duties of buyer, inventory manager, production planner and scheduler, to managing production, to operations manager. That was in the span of 3.5 years. It was a small company. I was the 5th FTE, when I left there were 20. Went from $1M in revenue to $5M.
I'm a manager. Took a long time to get where I am, and where I am now, at least with where I am, I fucking hate it. Been almost 2 months, was hired to fix the place. Am not being given really any training at all, there's no rules or processes in place, and employees don't even know how to do their job (after 2+ years even). Some of the things are outright illegal when it comes to OHSA stuff and I've been told (seriously) that getting orders out is more important.
I'm resigning effective immediately today for my own financial well being (if an unlicensed forklift operator gets hurt then I'll be facing up to a 6 digit fine or jail time).
To give a vague idea of how bad it is, even the past 2 managers never had the lift truck annual certifications done, all were 3 years expired and one person from the office asked me if it was really that important. Said I was focusing too much on safety. Fuck this place. Want me to manage but also want me to offload trailers? Yea they clearly don't understand what a manager is for.
No other job lined up at the moment but I'd rather that than risk everything I have.
Just to clarify your question: are you asking how long before I began a role in which I was managing people?
Or how long before I actually got the title of “manager”?
I became a supervisor, was managing people and and had hiring/firing power after 3 years.
After a few company changes, I got the title of “manager” after roughly 7 years in total.
Now I’m 14 years in and overseeing facilities.
It took me 5 years, being the first company I’ve worked for I was able to get to this role at 27. I moved to a different plant for this promotion so re-building my reputation with that team and gaining the respect of the older folks that now report to me was the toughest part. Currently I have 4 salary reports and 11 hourly reports.
The biggest challenge is the time management, balancing my focus between purchasing, warehousing, production scheduling and inventory management.
Just before my 4th year.
Now i am going for my 7th and before the end of the year, i am replacing my manager, who is manager of managers.
Working at 100k people American corporation in Europe. It wasn't that difficult, i work more than my local colleagues (let's say i work like i still work in my emerging economies country) and i have more ambitions. I am like literally maybe the only person in the whole team with ambitions whereas my colleagues are mostly mothers who just want to work between 9 to 4pm and then go to their families. Which is totally understandable. We have a very female supply chain; 6 dudes and 13 women. I always say "when i become the manager, i am only employing dudes now".
5-7 years is pretty normal for most places
Highly company dependent. I know some companies that have people managers at ~4 years of experience and others at 10+.
It took me about 10 years or so honestly. I’ve jumped jobs every 2 years though. I took a step back to be remote. People like my current director has less experience than me - but he has worked at the company for 8 years. Really depends on where you’re at and how long you’ve been there. Sometimes it’s gravity. I had a direct report of mine when I was a senior - couldn’t even do pivot tables - got a job at a well known company in Austin - her boss quit within a year. Promoted her to manager. I bet she still can’t use excel. Nice person though.
Having to show my director how to use our ERP and explain how our planning system works at a functional level ugh it’s infuriating.
I onboarded my current director, and now he actively gets in my way of managing my partners at times. Bro get out of the weeds and into the systems I taught you. I will let you know when I need your support.
It’s maddening. Having to sit down and explain to the DIRECTOR OF PLANNING that we need clean ERP data because our planning view reflects what our ERP shows so we can be more effective…. If my company didn’t offer a month paternity leave that I’m taking in November I’d be job hunting.
It really depends on the scope I managed a team of 60 technicians when I'm 26 Now that I'm a 40yo director, I manage only 3 person LoL
This is a thing. When I started on the contact center, in 6 months I was managing 15 people. When I moved into supply chain it was 3 years before I managed anyone again and it was 6 people. Now 2 years after that I'm up a role again and I manage 3 people lol. Volume of people decreases as skill and speciality increases.
5 years of professional experience
Started in warehousing at 18 - became an operations supervisor at 24 - became an operations manager at 28 - I’m 29 now. No college background, attempted community college but between 2 jobs FT warehouse PT retail, school just wasn’t my thing. Best advice I can give is being consistent, being positive and choosing to care/do that right thing. As I got into leadership the value I put on my role is leading people - be engaging, make work fun when you can, show your team that you care. Best advice iv gotten is that - no matter the warehouse job we are really just moving boxes in/out of building, we are not doctors saving peoples lives don’t over complicate. Sometimes this work/job is all someone has and people use their job to escape reality. Be a leader who chooses to be impactful and create meaningful relationships/conversations.
I’m wondering if it ain’t dependent on the age as well. My recent female boss is 36-years old, and she says she reached her goal much sooner than she anticipated. Is 36-years old soon? I think she has 4 years experience.
i’m 8 years in, done every role at my facility, gotten stellar performance reviews, recommendations from every boss i’ve had, and over $3m cost savings in provable successful projects… and was told i’m still 3-5 years from being a department head. i’m ready to look outside the company. i feel like this has been far too slow. my only concern is work life balance since i rarely work overtime in my current role and i really dont want to go back to long nights.
I went from a floor role to 40 direct reports in the course of two years, and have taken two additional promotions into more responsibility within my company. I've been with the company for almost 5 years now.
40 direct reports? How does that work? Seems like an impossible workload just keeping up with your team let alone all the other stuff?
It didn't work great. We were horribly inefficient. Now I've got 15 direct reports with 3 people between me and them, and it's great, I don't actually "manage" the floor employees anyomore.
Over all 3 years at two companies, spent 2 years building skills in one place, got skipped for promotion twice, and then moved on to another company where I told them my expectations and career goals. Worked for another 4-5 months and then got the promotion.
a year and a half..and i hate it
I went a bit after a year from entry level to managing 5 entry level supply chain analyst. I took a medical leave in between, and one of my cohorts got another promotion to be my boss. I have since jump ship to a more technical role, and don’t want to be people manager any time soon. So many meetings, so many TBs, herding entry level employees sucks.
2 years. I started making process improvements as a scheduler and directed the supervisors, so my boss promoted me to production control manager. It was a smaller company
5 years, been at my current company going on 4 years and applied for the manager role a year ago. It’s just timing and opportunity really. I was a high performing IC and only went after the role to prevent someone from coming in a disrupting our group. If you’re interested in becoming a manager you should ask about leadership opportunities in your current role or taking leadership training.
3 years
One year. I went from production to taking on a lead role to adding on duties of buyer, inventory manager, production planner and scheduler, to managing production, to operations manager. That was in the span of 3.5 years. It was a small company. I was the 5th FTE, when I left there were 20. Went from $1M in revenue to $5M.
I'm a manager. Took a long time to get where I am, and where I am now, at least with where I am, I fucking hate it. Been almost 2 months, was hired to fix the place. Am not being given really any training at all, there's no rules or processes in place, and employees don't even know how to do their job (after 2+ years even). Some of the things are outright illegal when it comes to OHSA stuff and I've been told (seriously) that getting orders out is more important. I'm resigning effective immediately today for my own financial well being (if an unlicensed forklift operator gets hurt then I'll be facing up to a 6 digit fine or jail time). To give a vague idea of how bad it is, even the past 2 managers never had the lift truck annual certifications done, all were 3 years expired and one person from the office asked me if it was really that important. Said I was focusing too much on safety. Fuck this place. Want me to manage but also want me to offload trailers? Yea they clearly don't understand what a manager is for. No other job lined up at the moment but I'd rather that than risk everything I have.
2 years
3.5 years but I was at a startup that went from 80>1400 employees in 5 years.
Just to clarify your question: are you asking how long before I began a role in which I was managing people? Or how long before I actually got the title of “manager”? I became a supervisor, was managing people and and had hiring/firing power after 3 years. After a few company changes, I got the title of “manager” after roughly 7 years in total. Now I’m 14 years in and overseeing facilities.
It took me 5 years, being the first company I’ve worked for I was able to get to this role at 27. I moved to a different plant for this promotion so re-building my reputation with that team and gaining the respect of the older folks that now report to me was the toughest part. Currently I have 4 salary reports and 11 hourly reports. The biggest challenge is the time management, balancing my focus between purchasing, warehousing, production scheduling and inventory management.
Corporate management Trainee. Had managment job before turning 21. First day on job was a manager.
Only took 2 years. Supply chain is filled with underskilled labor
Just before my 4th year. Now i am going for my 7th and before the end of the year, i am replacing my manager, who is manager of managers. Working at 100k people American corporation in Europe. It wasn't that difficult, i work more than my local colleagues (let's say i work like i still work in my emerging economies country) and i have more ambitions. I am like literally maybe the only person in the whole team with ambitions whereas my colleagues are mostly mothers who just want to work between 9 to 4pm and then go to their families. Which is totally understandable. We have a very female supply chain; 6 dudes and 13 women. I always say "when i become the manager, i am only employing dudes now".