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An organizational chart—also known as an org chart—is a diagram that shows how roles and responsibilities are structured within an organization. In the case of businesses, a quality org chart should make it easy to understand how employees and teams fit together within a company.

Here at The Org, we know a thing or two about organizational charts and the long list of benefits they bring to a company’s success. Learn what the different elements of an org chart are and how you can easily set one up that works best for your organization below.

What are the parts of an organizational chart?

The purpose of any org chart remains the same: making it easy to understand the layout of a company’s departments, teams and personnel.

To do this, an org chart can be broken down into five elements.

• Job Design: What skills or background are necessary for a job title
• Departmentation: The way an organization structures its jobs to coordinate work
• Delegation: What responsibilities each individual has
• Span of control. The number of individuals who report to a manager.
• Chain of command: A line of authority or decision-making

Most org charts fit all these elements in by using an organizational structure, also known as reporting structure. The goal of a reporting structure is to create a coherent workflow that helps a company execute its business strategy and reach its goals.

What are the five organizational structures?

Not every org chart looks the same.

There are three main types of organizational structures: hierarchical, flat and matrix. However, with a couple variations there are five main types of reporting structures that are recognized.

Hierarchical is the most traditional structure and closely resembles the pyramid chain of command we associate with a common corporate hierarchy. On the other hand, the flat structure and the matrix structure showcase operations utilizing a horizontal flow of authority.

How do you structure an organizational chart?

Now comes the important part—actually setting up your org chart.

1. Review and analyze long term strategy and goals

An org chart is meant to help execute a company’s strategy and meet its objectives in the most efficient way possible. Map out the core business strategy and what your workforce currently looks like. Carve out long term business goals and key metrics. Think about what function of the business is most vital to reaching those long term goals. Don’t forget to factor in future growth into the equation.

2. Pick an org design and delegate roles

Now that you’ve seen the different kinds of reporting structures out there, choose the one that will best match the company vision and goals you set up before. Review some common variations, like functional or divisional org charts, to see if your organization would benefit from some extra flexibility.

If choosing an hierarchical org structure, designate one role as the centralized decision-maker to make it easier to draw chains of command.

3. Choose a place to build your org chart

Now that you know your long term strategy and goals and what kind of reporting structure will help guide you there, it’s time to build out the chart. The easiest way to visualize and preserve this is to make an org chart digitally. There are dozens of tools available to create clear and effective org charts online.

If you are looking for simplicity and an easy-to-customize option, creating an org chart in PowerPoint might be up your alley. If you are looking for a software that is a bit more advanced and gives you more workflow options than just an org chart, consider tools like LucidChart or Visio.

READ: The Best Organizational Chart Software of 2022.

For a free and simple organizational chart maker, check out The Org.

The Org is a free platform where you can build your own organizational chart and share it with the world. With a free account, you can contribute to your company’s org chart and help keep it up to date by maintaining your own profile and adding other team members.

Building on The Org’s interface is user-friendly and easy. It also has options to import members of an organization through Slack integration.

Because org charts on The Org are accessible to everyone, you can find inspiration by browsing the org charts of thousands of other organizations across the globe. This includes some of the biggest and most complex company structures in the world, like Google, Tesla and Amazon.

You can use The Org to see how these companies have structured their internal teams, to look for open positions at the company, and to better understand how teams work together.

The platform allows companies to list open roles directly within their public org chart, empowering applicants to better understand where they might fit and who their future teammates and direct supervisors would be.