Do SMEs always have very high manager:employee ratios?

My experience of companies of that size is that just about everyone will end up being a "manager" or "head" of something or other after a couple of years, simply because small companies don't tend to have a lot of structure and have to continuously adapt to changing workloads; your company sounds like an exception to this rule! That means the manager to employee ratio often looks weird, but that's because many of the "managers" are just regular people doing jobs, rather than the kind of "manage a large team" role that would be found in a larger business.

The degree of micromanagement in such a small business sounds weird. It suggests a lack of flexibility and an distrust of its staff, which isn't a great look for a small business. Small businesses should focus on hiring competent and resourceful staff and trust and empower them to work together to solve the business's problems. Treating staff like cattle and obsessing over trivial KPIs should be left to mediocre large enterprises.

/r/AskUK Thread