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Director of Operations Salary in Toronto

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  • Dec 23rd, 2019 10:44 pm
Newbie
Dec 15, 2019
3 posts
6 upvotes

Director of Operations Salary in Toronto

Hey everyone,

I had a phone interview for the Director of Operations position in Toronto this morning and expecting to have an in-person interview with the VP early next week. It's a small private company ( just 12 direct reports ) providing consumer and business services and the position includes travel within Canada ( up to 10 trips/year ) and client meetups.

Any suggestions in regards to the compensation package to look for? Currently making 62K as an operations manager for a food chain company in Ottawa with 5 years of experience. Trying to figure out what pay raise will be worth moving to Toronto, etc.

Thanks in advance,
B.
16 replies
Member
Feb 13, 2017
369 posts
350 upvotes
toronto, ontario
Minimum $90,000 as Toronto is HCOL city. Plus reasonable moving expenses.

Let them give you a number or range first and then negotiate accordingly.
Member
Dec 13, 2017
267 posts
204 upvotes
I feel like if you are a "director", you should be asking for 100k or am i just being a wishful thinker?
Deal Addict
Nov 30, 2011
1161 posts
518 upvotes
HRM
Starting low 6 figures for sure.
This is a Director position with 12 direct reports (first thing to do is reorg to streamline some of those reports) - you should have max 8 people reporting to you.

You should also be looking at 4 weeks vacation and car allowance - these are pretty standard for this position.
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User avatar
Mar 7, 2007
5347 posts
3026 upvotes
westcoastyvr wrote: ... you should have max 8 people reporting to you.
Why is that?

Are you thinking about best case scenario for the director (personally)?
Or for the company?

Different studies / experts say that the ideal number of people reporting to a manager should be 7, 8, or 9 (I have heard them all). But in reality, tons of managers everywhere are in the double digits (teams of more than 10 people).

The OP should not accept the job, and then fire 4 people without a really good reason.

What he could do is pick the 1 or 2 top performers in that team, and assign some additional tasks to them, to facilitate the director's people management tasks.
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Newbie
May 13, 2019
11 posts
20 upvotes
motomondo wrote: Why is that?

Are you thinking about best case scenario for the director (personally)?
Or for the company?

Different studies / experts say that the ideal number of people reporting to a manager should be 7, 8, or 9 (I have heard them all). But in reality, tons of managers everywhere are in the double digits (teams of more than 10 people).

The OP should not accept the job, and then fire 4 people without a really good reason.

What he could do is pick the 1 or 2 top performers in that team, and assign some additional tasks to them, to facilitate the director's people management tasks.
Reorg does not necessarily mean to fire 4 people, he could reorganize to pull one person into a supervisory position over some of the others. He would then have 8 direct reports with one of those reports having 4 direct reports of their own.
Deal Addict
Oct 14, 2010
1291 posts
1787 upvotes
Toronto
BrianTB wrote: Hey everyone,

I had a phone interview for the Director of Operations position in Toronto this morning and expecting to have an in-person interview with the VP early next week. It's a small private company ( just 12 direct reports ) providing consumer and business services and the position includes travel within Canada ( up to 10 trips/year ) and client meetups.

Any suggestions in regards to the compensation package to look for? Currently making 62K as an operations manager for a food chain company in Ottawa with 5 years of experience. Trying to figure out what pay raise will be worth moving to Toronto, etc.

Thanks in advance,
B.
$125K + 20% bonus + Full medical benefits + 3-9% matching on pension/rrsp
Deal Addict
Apr 21, 2014
2321 posts
1106 upvotes
Alberta
BrianTB wrote: Hey everyone,

I had a phone interview for the Director of Operations position in Toronto this morning and expecting to have an in-person interview with the VP early next week. It's a small private company ( just 12 direct reports ) providing consumer and business services and the position includes travel within Canada ( up to 10 trips/year ) and client meetups.

Any suggestions in regards to the compensation package to look for? Currently making 62K as an operations manager for a food chain company in Ottawa with 5 years of experience. Trying to figure out what pay raise will be worth moving to Toronto, etc.

Thanks in advance,
B.
Is there 12 people in the company or are there 12 ppl
Reporting to you? If reporting to you, it should be minimum 120-130k range. That’s a lot of people and responsibility. Also each person under you should be making less than you (their boss). Would be weird if they were making 60k and you were making 70k. That 10k isn’t worth the hassle.

You should be making at least 30k more than your highest paid direct report (with a team of that size).
Member
Oct 5, 2019
237 posts
237 upvotes
abc123yyz wrote:
Is there 12 people in the company or are there 12 ppl
Reporting to you? If reporting to you, it should be minimum 120-130k range. That’s a lot of people and responsibility. Also each person under you should be making less than you (their boss). Would be weird if they were making 60k and you were making 70k. That 10k isn’t worth the hassle.

You should be making at least 30k more than your highest paid direct report (with a team of that size).
Why can’t people that report to you make more than you? Management is a different role, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a more valuable (monetarily) role. There are plenty of engineers in the big tech companies in the valley for example that make more than their managers.
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Mar 7, 2007
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Gorbers wrote: Why can’t people that report to you make more than you? Management is a different role, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a more valuable (monetarily) role. There are plenty of engineers in the big tech companies in the valley for example that make more than their managers.
I agree with the above. This is the way is going in IT, every time there is some new, shiny, emerging technology, the manager is making less money than some people in the team.

At the banks, a Sr. Manager may be making $100 K but if he has to hire an Artificial Intelligence "expert", then this expert may make more than the manager.

Same has happened already when hiring machine learning, big data, security, analytics, blockchain experts. These guys make as much, or more than the manager they report into.
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Deal Addict
Apr 21, 2014
2321 posts
1106 upvotes
Alberta
Gorbers wrote: Why can’t people that report to you make more than you? Management is a different role, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a more valuable (monetarily) role. There are plenty of engineers in the big tech companies in the valley for example that make more than their managers.
Interesting. I personally have never come across this, but I don’t work in Tech. I was basing it off the industry the OP is in.
Member
Feb 13, 2017
369 posts
350 upvotes
toronto, ontario
DontCareyou wrote: I feel like if you are a "director", you should be asking for 100k or am i just being a wishful thinker?
The "director" title is a meaningless measure of compensation unless you work for a Big Four or MBB firm.

In my industry---wealth management@private banking---director-level positions typically earn $500,000 or more.
Deal Addict
Nov 30, 2011
1161 posts
518 upvotes
HRM
MLNick wrote: Reorg does not necessarily mean to fire 4 people, he could reorganize to pull one person into a supervisory position over some of the others. He would then have 8 direct reports with one of those reports having 4 direct reports of their own.
Bingo!
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Dec 23, 2008
6114 posts
1693 upvotes
Milton
My mentor gave me this tip when trying to negotiate salary in a upper-management position. Find an individual in the same industry and role as you in 'Sunshine List' (i.e. sunshinelist.ca) and add 20% if you are applying to a private company.
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Oct 2, 2018
3166 posts
3653 upvotes
Toronto
If you will be renting / leasing i would suspect your costs will about double on that item, and you also have to take into account travel time which will be significantly more that Ottawa. A would estimate a $20K minimum pay increase for the same position in Toronto over where you currently reside in Ottawa.

Add to it a jump from manager to Director, so that should be another $20K, so at the minimum i would gather $62K current base + $20K location premium +$20K director role and ~$102K would be my starting point. If in a larger company then it goes upwards from there, but $100K would be bare minimum in a smaller company or the move just wouldn't be worth the incentive. In a larger company perhaps $150K might be in order, specifics do matter however $100K - $150K seems reasonable to start with.
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Deal Addict
Apr 14, 2017
1967 posts
621 upvotes
DT Calgary
That’s a lot of direct reports. You should aim for 120K+, good benefits, 20%+ bonus, long term incentive plans, and 6%+ rrsp matching..

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