7 Easy Steps in Making an Organizational Chart

Chances are, at some point in your life, you’ve had to create an organizational chart. Maybe you were tasked with creating one for a company you worked for, or maybe you were assigned one as part of a school project. Regardless of the circumstances, it can be tricky to know where to start. But don’t worry, we’re here to help! In this post, we’ll outline seven easy steps in making an organizational chart. So whether you’re a beginner or an experienced pro, follow these tips and you’ll be churning out beautiful charts in no time!

Now, let’s talk about the 7 easy steps in making an org chart.

1) Decide on a Layout for Your Org Chart

There are many types of layouts available, depending on how you want them to look. To determine a layout that would fit your company’s requirements or preferences, you need to first survey employees on their preferred designs. If there is no overwhelming preference then you can decide for yourself which design you think would work best for your org chart. Another thing you have to consider is if some positions should be listed side by side as opposed to underneath each other or vice versa. There be instances when co-workers share a single box because they are both in charge of the same aspect of work.

2) Make Use of Templates Available Online in Creating an Org Chart

To make things a lot easier, there are org chart templates available online that you could use for free. Venngage has made its org chart template available for download at no cost. This saves you the trouble of having to make one from scratch which can be quite intimidating, especially if you are not very knowledgeable about drawing software. Venngage’s free org chart template has been made to work with Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides. To download Venngage’s org chart template, simply click here.

Venngage’s org chart template is a great way to help you come up with a chart that would best represent your company. Think of Venngage as a tool in creating org charts for nearly any purpose ranging from smaller businesses to even government agencies. Sign-up with Venngage to try their free templates.

Venngage

3) Make Cosmetic Adjustments for the Organizational Structure

If you have to fill in most or all spaces on your organizational chart then do not feel pressured to include every single person working for your company. Not only will this look crowded but it can also become confusing especially if there are a lot of people involved. You can start by including all top management employees then gradually add lower-level employees into the mix with each version that you come up with. These versions could be presented to employees for comments and feedback before finalizing them to obtain suggestions for improvement.

4) Start Charting Your Organization

Now that you have settled on a layout, it is time to input data onto the organizational chart. There are several ways to do this but the simplest one is just by typing in names in alphabetical order. It is best to list them with their official titles so it would be easier for you and others to understand where they belong on your organizational chart.

5) Verify All Data of Your Company Organizational Chart

This step requires you to double-check everything before printing out copies of the finished org chart layout. This will prevent avoidable errors with regards to incorrect spellings, missing or inaccurate titles, or even wrong designations that may confuse your company.

6) Finalize Your Org Chart

Once you have completed all the necessary steps in making an org chart, it is time to fix final errors and release them for general use. This final step could be skipped if there are no more changes to be made by anybody.

7) Make More  Org Charts

If you only have 1 chart, your employees might get bored with it so why not make another one? Experiment with designs until you find one that would best fit your company’s organizational structure. If there is already an org chart but the boxes are either too big or too small for content then it may be time to redo them in a way that would work better for everybody involved. You can also change the layout of each box depending on how it would look based on just using names within each department’s designated area. Some people use different colors to distinguish between certain departments while others do not. The possibilities are endless when it comes to creating org charts so you must take advantage of this.

Venngage

Conclusion:

As you can see, creating an organizational chart is not as hard as it may seem. Once you have developed your layout then the only thing that’s left for you to do is to gather employee data to fill in each box with accurate information. You are now ready to share your chart with employees and even clients so they would be able to understand who does what within your company. Use this as a checklist to help you come up with a professional-looking org chart that would best represent your business.

Creating org charts need not be a tedious task if you know how to go about it, especially if there are templates available online that could help make things easier for you. Although these templates are great in terms of saving time and effort, never rely on them too much because they will prove insufficient when changes become inevitable over time. Instead of starting from scratch, you can now just edit your org chart whenever necessary so it would give you more room for adjustments. This way, everybody will be able to see exactly where things stand within the organizational structure so nobody would have any trouble knowing who does what in your company.