We have so many relationships in our work lives, both formal and informal. The org chart gives you a clear vision of the formal work relationships. You might chart people based on their financial reporting relationship or by their day-to-day functional reporting. Many companies do both. Some people scoff, saying that their company works in teams thus making the hierarchy obsolete. I have seldom found this to be a reality.

Why is this visualization of the organization still so important? An org chart gives a clear definition of very important relationships.
• Who is responsible for you?
• Who are you responsible for?
• Whose budget do you belong to?
• Who will conduct your performance appraisal?
• Who will you consider as your most probable candidate to succeed you in the succession plan?
• Who should you go to when you have a concern about something in the business?

There are reasons why Sarbanes-Oxley audits utilize an org chart during several steps of the process. There is a real need for an accountability span of control.

Let’s look at the relationship aspect of the org chart even more. Employee retention is vital to the health of an organization. It’s often said that people don’t leave a company, they leave their supervisor. So, you want to turn that around and keep people because of their supervisor. You want to know clearly who is ultimately responsible for each person’s job satisfaction, besides the individual. Objectives are tied to retention and employee engagement in many companies; that means it is even more important to build the relationships up and down the chain of command. Dotted-line reporting, or matrix organizations, creates an ever greater need to visualize the relationships between people – the multiple responsibilities we hold to each other.

I’d like to hear about your experience with the formal relationship links you maintain. There will be more discussion in this blog about this topic – I hope you will add your ideas to the comments for discussion.

Cheers,
Lois

Lois Melbourne is CEO and Co-Founder of Aquire, Inc. a provider of visual workforce planning and management solutions based in Irving, Texas.