3 Ways to Make your Org Charts better

We did speak quite a bit about Org Charts a few posts back, but in this post we thought of letting you all in on 3 simple points that can to help make your Org Charts more focused and clearer.

1. Know the difference between Vertical and Horizontal

A vertical organizational structure denotes a strict top down or bottom up structure. Typically, a rigid top down vertical organizational structure has been favored for businesses and other organization types. On the other hand, a horizontal organizational structure means a flat or semi- flat organizational structure, like a meritocracy. While many do design their Org Charts with their direct reports being positioned horizontally, the right thing to do is to be aware of what your company structure is all about, i.e. vertical or horizontal before actually attempting an Org Chart. A vertical Org Chart is shown below.

2. Name It and then Put a Face to It

Including images of staff in your Org Chart can help humanize your company intranet site, assist new employees get better acquainted, and help virtual teams that are not in close proximity to get a sense of who their co-workers are. But you really need not limit yourself to just staff pictures. If you do have an Org Chart that is rather mundane and abstract, you could infuse some liveliness and color to it but plugging in some images to highlight the type of operations as well. For instance, if you have a department called Division of Finance & Management, you could have a dollar sign image next to it. Check out how big a difference, having a picture and not having one makes below.

3. Go Unconventional with Org Charts

While Org Charts are conventionally used by HR to show the basic structure that is present in an organization, why not use such a diagram type to illustrate other types of information? For instance, you could use Color to showcase the gender balance or the different age groups present in an organization. Don’t stop there though, you could even use a colorful Org Chart to allocate staff members into different teams in the Sports Committee, to assess the number of Senior Executives present as opposed to Junior Executives or even. There really is no limit as to what you can do with organigrams, all it takes is some intuition and creativity.

Stick to these 3 tips to make your designs clear, sharp, clutter-free and offer more information. Try out these smart 3 tips on Creately for free and see how creating Org Charts is as easy as peanuts.