"How many days should a manager spend in the field?"
I get asked this often. I do not think there is one right answer.
It depends on the size of the team, how new the reps are, the geography, and what else the role carries. A manager with several new joiners needs a different month from one with a settled, experienced team.
What I am sure of is this: the number has to be chosen. Not left over.
In many diaries I have seen, the field gets whatever the office does not take. Meetings, reports, a request from above. The field days shrink quietly, week by week, and nobody ever decides it.
- So each month I look at four things:
- The field days I chose before the month started.
- How many of them survived.
- Which reps I actually spent time with, and who I missed.
- Whether each day had a purpose agreed with the rep.
Two habits help me most. Put field days in the calendar first, before anything else. And when something has to move, move the office task, not the field day.
The team notices. A manager who keeps field days is telling everyone where the job really is.
“Your field days are the job. Everything else should fit around them.”
Lesson 1 of 16 in Step 3: The field day, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.