An organizational chart is a visual representation of a company’s internal structure. It outlines the hierarchy and reporting relationships between different positions and departments. Maintaining an up-to-date org chart is crucial for effective communication across your organization.
In this guide, we’ll cover essential tips for creating organizational charts that facilitate transparent communication and collaboration.
What is an Org Chart?
An org chart is an indispensable, living document that evolves as your company grows and changes. The most effective charts clearly convey information to relevant stakeholders while saving them time and frustration. Unfortunately, org charts are often an afterthought which can limit their usefulness.
By following organizational chart best practices, you can proactively build a resource that supports your company goals instead of getting in the way. This article will overview core principles, creative solutions, and impact-focused frameworks to help you visualize your team structure in service of clear communication across your organization.
Identify Your “Why”
The first step to an impactful org chart is defining why you need one in the first place. What questions should it answer? How will people use the information? Knowing the purpose orients all other decisions around functionality.
Common reasons companies create org charts include:
- Onboarding new employees
- Streamlining cross-team collaboration
- Clarifying chains of command
- Supporting growth planning and restructures
- Enabling leadership to see reporting relationships
Once you’ve identified 1-3 core reasons, you can focus on the essential information needed, potential use cases, and key stakeholders. This ensures you build a fit-for-purpose chart instead of a generic one.
Map Out Audiences
Next, clarify which groups need access to your org chart and define their unique needs. Do leaders want a high-level view while customer support reps prefer an in-depth team roster? Are financial controllers less focused on junior roles?
Mapping audiences enables creating tiered charts tailored to each group or one adaptable base version. It also indicates if some sensitive information should be excluded.
Being audience-focused improves the relevance, accessibility and security of your org chart. Define 4-5 priority stakeholders and determine what details matter most to them.
Select a Layout
With purpose and audiences clear, you can strategically select an org chart layout. The standard hierarchical pyramid might not be the best choice. Explore options like circular, matrix or horizontal structures instead.
The goal is finding a design that visually reinforces your company roles, culture and strategic objectives — not just copying your impersonal reporting chain.
Creative approaches include:
- Circular: Conveys collaboration and de-emphasized hierarchy
- Flat: Represents egalitarian values with accessible information
- Matrix: Highlights cross-functional relationships
- Network: Visualizes complex interdepartmental connections
There’s no one-size-fits all. Choose the layout that effectively conveys your organizational relationships and priorities to stakeholders.
Prioritize Key Information
Org charts quickly become unwieldy if you incorporate every division and employee name imaginable. That level of granular detail benefits no one.
Pare down components to high-value information that meets your intended purpose. If a customer support agent mainly interacts with sales and engineering contacts, drill down there while listing other groups at a higher level.
Critical elements often include:
- Leadership names & photos
- Department and sub-team names
- Reporting lines between groups
- Headcount numbers without individual names
- Contact information
Starting with 8-12 key components helps focus attention on the most important people, teams and connections. Additional itemization is optional based on audience needs.
Keep it Current
As companies evolve, organizational charts easily become outdated. This creates confusion around accurate structures and appropriate contacts.
Prevent miscommunications by creating a defined rhythm for reviewing and updating org charts. Monthly or quarterly refreshes work well for fast-changing startups while annually or biannually suits more stable companies.
Changes often coincide with company milestones like funding rounds, product launches, restructures or growth goals. Link your review schedule to these general timeframes.
You also need to clarify the approval chain and party responsible for updates. Without accountability, no one prioritizes keeping charts current.
Automate reminders for your chosen owner to revise on schedule. Bonus points for linking chart updates to major news announcements.
Promote Accessibility
Buried away in legacy systems or complex file structures, even the best org charts fail to serve their communication purpose. Promote ongoing accessibility through multiple channels including:
- Your company intranet
- Shared drives with access permissions
- Print outs in common spaces like lounge areas
- Digital displays/TV screens in lobbies
- Mobile browser-friendly cloud hosting
Prioritizing easy access across devices and locations encourages natural referencing. Position org charts prominently alongside other must-have resources like employee directories and style guides.
Enable active linking between depicted teams or leaders and their contact information or bios. The convenience incentivizes usage while keeping connections clear.
Link to Useful Tools
Org charts don’t exist in a vacuum. To maximize impact, directly integrate your chart with tools teams use daily including:
- Email communication platforms tying individual contacts and groups to chart hierarchy
- Project management systems displaying task organization by depicted teams
- HR information systems linking to employee profiles and management chains
- Financial systems showing budget responsibilities
Enabling one-click access between systems streamlines finding answers around “Who is responsible for this?” Saving stakeholders even small search efforts builds ongoing engagement.
Over time, your thoughtfully crafted org chart transforms from a static snapshot to a valuable portal tying together people, teams and responsibilities across the systems driving your business.
Create an Org Chart Worth Sharing
A generic pyramid hierarchy fails to meet most organizational chart best practices. Modern solutions require thoughtfully mapping purpose, audiences, layout and key information components. Keeping the end chart visible, accessible and integrated sustains regular usage.
With attention to refreshing details plus enabling quick access and links between systems, your org chart becomes a reference hub tying together people, teams and information flows across your company. It evolves from an HR formality to a valued resource facilitating transparent communication and collaboration.
The small upfront effort pays continuous dividends through reduced ambiguity and complexity that drag down stakeholder productivity. A truly helpful org chart visually conveys essentials while connecting the dots to critical complementary systems.
