ORCHESTRATING YOUR
ORGANISATIONAL CHART
Overview
An organisation chart should be derived from your mission and goals. What is the best structure to carry out the goods and/or services you deliver? As an organisation grows the structure will change as responsibilities and decision-making gets divided up, as new projects or services are taken on, as locations expand, or a variety of other reasons. The effects of the structure permeate throughout the entire organisation. It will provide consistent and clarity not only to your employees and how they feel about your organisation, but also the information you receive to base your decisions on. Don’t underestimate its importance; it’s worth the time and effort to codify your thoughts on how the organisation is laid out and to how it will evolve. There are several things to keep in mind when determining the structure you want our organisation to have.
Focus on the long-term aspect of your business. Redesigning the organisational structure is expensive and time-consuming and breeds confusion.
Know the business and what happening on the ground. Talk to all levels of employees and get their perspective of what’s right and what’s wrong with the existing structure.
Flexible operating models should be tailor-made that fits your organisation. You are unique in a lot of ways and your org chart should accommodate your differences.
Consider the important levers that you want in your organisation. Are they about structure, process or people? What are your management performance indicators? Where are your strong-points and weaknesses?
Concentrate on the roles not the people in them. A healthy organisation normally requires a wide range of personalities to optimize all its activities. Match the person to the role not vice versa.
Identify your organisation values and use them as a filter your decisions on your entire organisation. It affects the way you do your business.
Feedback systems will need tp allow you to monitor the efficacy of your choices. How well is the structure working? Too much focus on individual key performance indicators lead to silo thinking. Keep your approach and analysis holistic and “big picture”. We live in an interconnected world.
Downside. What are the risks and repercussions that are affected by your decisions? How can you mitigate them?
Components
Department or divisions – How is your organisation organised? These would be the major areas of service delivery, locations, or projects and typically would be headed by a manager. Let’s define mangers as those people with other employees for whom they are responsible, which would normally include the ability to hire and fire.
Types of Employment Positions – These positions should all have specific job titles that are attached to them. Of course a lot of them would certainly have more than one person in that position.
Hierarchal and Relative Relationships – A good org chart shows the relative positions within the organisation, normally starting at the head of the organisation and working down to support people or those with the lowest level of responsibility.
Levels of Responsibility – The org chart should clearly show the levels of responsibility, normally on the same horizontal line. Sometimes there may be a large gap between the job titles, especially in smaller departments that may have no middle management or higher levels of responsibility.
Lines of Authority – This should show a direct link to the person the employee reports to. Often there may be several levels of responsibility reporting to only one employment position. The person being reported to would usually have some control over the lower person’s day to day activity.
“White Spaces” – This is the undefined area of an org chart. Often there is lateral communication between employees that affect the operations of any organisation. For example not all communication between managers goes up the chart to that person who has responsibility for both managers, and then back down to the other manager. Skipping levels of authority should be done with caution as it creates blurring lines of responsibility.
Sample Chart
Additional Considerations:
Position Titles – How consistent is the nomenclature? Do all “Officers” have equivalent responsibilities? What about “Assistants”? Some consistency here helps everyone in the organisation know where they fit into the scheme of things. Especially when they relate them to your pay scale.
Bookkeeping – How does your chart of accounts line up with the org chart? If your bookkeeping systems allows for classes or departments do they match? Are you posting all costs to a particular employee to that department such as statutory employee expenses, vacation, training, benefits, etc. Do you want your chart of accounts to allow you to track management costs separately? Support personnel? Technical employees? How valuable is this information?
Pay Scale – If you have one, how is the fit? Are the levels of responsibility consistent between the two? How consistent are they between departments?
Reporting Lines – How many masters does an employee have? Do your managers have control over the employees they are responsible for? Who’s there real boss?