What is an org chart? An org chart is a graphical representation of the structure of an organization. When most people talk about org charts, they are referencing the org chart that outlines the entire organization, but org charts can be made for individual teams, projects, and smaller organizations. The purpose of an org chart is to make apparent the relationships and relative ranks of job positions within the organization.
A typical org chart may include employee names, titles, contact information, and sometimes responsibilities of the individual employee. An org chart can provide your employees with a quick understanding of the hierarchies within your organization. It’s an invaluable tool for onboarding new employees, fostering communication between your teams, and giving employees a deeper understanding of your organization.
Traditionally, org charts have been used most by HR teams, executives, and new employees that are going through the onboarding process. Typically, it has been the responsibility of the HR team to update the org chart and make it available to employees within the company.
However, creating an org chart has always been a difficult prospect. Organizations that have high turnover are forced to constantly update it and often use less-than-ideal solutions like Excel, Word, or even Photoshop to create their org chart. That makes it difficult to update and even more difficult to collaborate. With Organimi, we make it easy for teams to create, collaborate, and keep their org chart updated.
Uses Cases for Org Charts
So, what is an org chart is a pretty straightforward question but how an org chart is used gets a little bit more complicated. There are many different ways that an org chart can be used and not every company uses organization charts in the same way.
Using a modern org chart software can help teams to create multiple org charts for their individual teams and distribute them throughout their organization to ensure that they are used when appropriate.
Some of the more common ways that org charts are used include:
New Hire Onboarding
When companies hire new employees the onboarding process can be arduous and difficult. The company has certain points they want to drive home and goals that they want to meet. The new employee also has several hurdles they need to get past before they can begin to have success in their new role.
A key hurdle for both is integrating the employee into their current teams and empowering them to communicate with people that can help them in their new positions. Org charts give new hires the ability to communicate effectively and work with their new colleagues as they become familiar with their new role.
Remote Employee Engagement
Managing remote teams can be very difficult. It’s particularly hard when you have a hybrid organization, with some remote employees and some in-office. They just don’t get that face-to-face interaction that a traditional employee would receive.
It’s important that you give remote employees the tools they need to succeed. You have to foster engagement within your organization, which is often difficult for remote employees.
What good is an org chart if its not updated? By having an updated org chart (or set of org charts) on hand for your remote employees to reference when trying to navigate communications within your company, you put yourself and your teams in a position for success. Remote employees can quickly understand who is who, what each person does, where they work, and who they need to get to know to do their job effectively. An org chart is an essential tool for managing any remote team.
Employee Productivity
In general, org charts are a great tool for improving employee productivity. It gives your employees a way to visualize the structure of your organization and be more intentional in the way that they communicate.
They’ll spend less time sending messages through middlemen or running down the right contact information and more time effectively communicating. Some studies have shown that the average employee spends 17 hours per week communicating. Org charts mean less time chatting and more time involved in their work.
Sales Tools
Org charts don’t just facilitate communication. They’re also effective sales tools. This is especially true in account-based sales for B2B companies, where your sales reps are interacting with buying teams that average more than 5 people in your typical deal.
An org chart helps your sales teams to understand the organization as a whole. They help them to better understand who they need to communicate with and what their potential concerns regarding the deal might be. An org chart for a prospective customer’s organization is a valuable tool in B2B sales and having a modern org chart software to help you put them together is necessary.
Issues With Creating Org Charts
Traditionally org charts have been static documents. To update the document, it required that the person updating it had the most recent version on hand. Often, teams would update org chart documents that were outdated, leading to several different versions floating around the company.
Organizations that had high levels of turnover quickly found that the document becomes more of a historical document than any kind of reliable real-time resource for their employees. This led to differing opinions on the usefulness of the document internally, despite it being perfectly clear how useful a consistently updated org chart could be.
Another issue comes from the way organizations are structured today. They aren’t always so linear and it can be difficult to create an org chart when your company or team is using a non-traditional organizational strategy. We are seeing more flat style structures today than we ever have in the past.
Sometimes, individual teams will have their own structures and hierarchies that differ quite a bit from the organization as a whole. Organizations need a solution that is adaptable and flexible, allowing them to create org charts that match the way their teams operate.
Organimi’s Org Chart Software Can Help
Organimi’s sleek drag-and-drop interface and collaboration features make it easy for your teams to create an org chart and keep it updated at all times. Our solution makes it easy for company’s and team’s using all organizational structures to customize their org chart to fit their needs.
Whether you are using it to onboard new employees, manage your remote teams, or provide valuable tools to your sales teams — an org chart software solution is a tool in your arsenal that will help your company across the board.
Want to give Organimi a try? Click here to sign up for free today.