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Why is org chart software important?

Articles, Org Chart

In today’s competitive business environments, business professionals are turning more and more to org chart development and management as they work to better understand, lead, and guide their organizations.

A well-designed and useful org chart delivers quantifiable data and insight leading to a greater understanding of the organization’s strengths, resources and opportunities for growth – all of which directly impact a company’s bottom line.

Whatever the size of your company, having a formal structure can help increase your ability to efficiently direct growth and progress to ultimately – and steadily – achieve your goals.

There are several options available to help you create useful business org charts. These include simple diagrams created with Powerpoint that provide a basic visualization of your company to using advanced software like Gemini that can deliver deeper insights and a better understanding of your organization’s specific strengths, problem areas, talent resources, potential for improvement, and opportunities for growth.

While better than having no org chart in place, a simple graphical visualization (such as Powerpoint) does not include all the important elements necessary to help you visualize the composition of your team, understand the responsibilities of individual team members, know what specific skills and experience of team members are at your disposal or provide up to the minute progress on current projects.

The most problematic issue with many org charts is that it is a static or semi-static document; with every change or completed action, HR has to make manual updates on the chart or else the chart becomes misleading, out of date, and, ultimately, useless.

This type of org chart then becomes more of a historic data file rather than a live, real-time document with actionable, useful data. Additionally, access to important, up-to-date data and information may be limited or restricted resulting in a lack of clarity and understanding of the current situation. This all leads to communication issues and unnecessary errors and overlaps resulting in costly inefficiencies.

Why is org chart software important?

Using specialized org chart software puts the power of the organization in the palm of your hand by delivering an almost superhuman insight into your business operations – a kind of professional X-Ray vision.

This gives business leaders like you the ability to overlay and visualize multiple layers of company information showing how teams are made up, what assets you have available and where, and how they are currently operating across the entire enterprise.

In short, the more data and information decision makers have at their fingertips, the better they are able to see how the company is operating, more fully understanding what the company needs and, as a result, make better, more informed decisions.

While not a complete list, below are several additional ways your company can benefit from using a powerful, robust Org Chart Software platform:

Visualize Your Workforce

What if you could see, in real time, the current, data-rich status of your entire workforce? Org Chart platforms like Gemini give you the ability to connect to your actual company HRIS and automatically generate a beautiful, interactive, always up-to-date window into your business.

Single Source of Truth

One of the biggest issues facing HR managers is that the data they need exists across the company in different systems and spreadsheets – many times siloed to specific departments. Using Org Chart software delivers a complete and easily understood visualization of your entire workforce including employees and contract or contingent workers. It gives you the ability to gather all of you people data in one place and let everyone see who is who, where they are and what they are doing. All of this results in enabling better people decisions.

Rich People Profiles

Data-rich people profiles help you find the right person for each assignment in every circumstance. At the click of a button, the relevant certifications, degrees, skillsets, and experience of every member of your organization is revealed and organized, giving you and your team fast and reliable information. This delivers an understanding of exactly what resources you have available to best address a given situation or project and make the best decisions. 

Scenario Planning

Want to experiment with organization changes and see the functional, financial, and operational impact in real-time? With the powerful tools available to you in the right software platform, you can quickly create new positions, move managers and individual employees to different projects, restructure an entire team or move individuals to a bench for future consideration. With the right tools at your disposal the possibilities are endless!

Design for an Org Restructure

Restructuring your organization can have far-reaching impact on a company – effects that can be difficult to see and are crucial to get right. With the right Org chart Software, you have the ability to quickly and easily collaborate with other team members, visualize changes to your organization and see the impact different moves will make on individual teams and departments. With the ability to quickly create different scenarios, you are better able to reimagine your company and understand the functional, financial, and organizational impacts of those decisions before you make them.

Design for a Reduction in Force

Change can be difficult if not properly managed and instituted. A successful Reduction in Force (RIF) action requires a well-researched and thought-out plan to eliminate possible problems and roadblocks. The right Org Chart software allows you to visualize your organization and strategically pinpoint positions across your team that can be eliminated to achieve financial goals and streamline the business. Additionally, when an RIF takes place, team member morale can take a big hit and you may lose employees that you hoped to retain, causing unforeseen issues. That’s why it’s important to have solid, reliable data and information that allows you to make these changes responsibly and understand the impact on your remaining team and culture.

Headcount Plans

One of the great benefits of Org Chart software is that, no matter where they are located, stakeholders across an organization have access to the same data-rich information no matter where they can access a single source of truth from nearly anywhere. All of your managers can create, edit and collaborate on headcount plans with you, so never again will you have to find and reconcile a dozen headcount plans from every stakeholder.

No matter the size of your organization, Org Chart Software platforms are designed to facilitate improved internal communications within your organization and help deliver an increased level of insight, awareness and understanding of current resources.

Choosing the right option to create and design the chart itself can provide a big step towards achieving and create an employee directory with full-text search capabilities. Allowing you to indicate specific roles, departments, and more, as well as enable the publication and updating of organizational charts as your business grows. However, now there are plenty of different org charts softwares available. Here’s a list that our team prepared, if you want to start trying out Org Chart software.

If you need some extra help to start your Org Chart software journey, feel free to contact us or book a demo. Let us show you how Gemini can help you design the best version of your organization.

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