An organization tree is a graphical representation of the hierarchical structure of an organization, explaining the authorities and responsibilities of the employees of that organization.
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What is Organization Tree?
We all made that family tree when we were kids, right? It had a hierarchical structure starting from our grandparent, then our parents, their brothers and sisters beside them, then their children along with us. That was quite fun and easy to understand about the hierarchy of the family, wasn’t it?
In a similar way, we have an organization tree. An organization tree is a graphical representation of the hierarchies in the organization starting from the highest position to the lowest ones.
It helps us easily understand the highly complicated structure of the company. It gives a gist about the managerial levels from the highest position to the lowest ones.
What are the Benefits of an Organization Tree?
Let’s consider a situation where you are supposed to give a sales report to the sales manager while you are working in the product team. Now, you can’t ask everyone around you, “Do you know who the sales manager is?” obviously!
Now in this situation the organization tree will help you out. You can quickly go through the managerial section under the sales department and look who is there at that position.
Sounds quite easy right?
This is how an organization tree is beneficial to employees at workplace.Let’s see how else it is useful.
- Easy-to-Understand: An organization tree represents the internal structure and the hierarchies of the organization visually. Visuals or graphics helps an individual to remember complex things easily.
- Swift Onboarding: A new employee who doesn’t know much about the company might not know who they must report. The organization tree helps the employee to clarify them about their immediate seniors who they must report and who are supposed to report them.
- Tasks’ Clarity: The organization tree helps their employees to identify the tasks clearly that can avoid the duplication or overlapping of the work. This is a very important advantage of the organization tree since it helps the employees to reduce the extra work that comes to their way.
- Distributed Workload: Decentralized organization tree structure helps the manager to manage the workload and they know who they can give that extra work to. This will the team or the department to complete their part for the company in time.
- Improved Performances: When an employee knows better about the work they must do and the responsibilities they are holding, they work in a better and in an easy manner. Organization tree clarifies the employees about their roles and responsibilities thus leading a better performance.
What are the Different Types of Organization Tree?
There is various organisation tree, but let’s discuss a few major of them-
- Functional Structure: In this type of organization tree, the employees are organized in a functional department depending upon the similarities in their skill set, tasks and the business activity.
- Divisional Structure: It is quite like the functional structure, but it differs as with this type of structure. We divide our organization’s majors into departments like sales, product, marketing, HR and then we create a structure.
- Team-based Structure: In this type of the organization tree, the structure is created according to the team working towards the similar goal for the organization. They are a little less hierarchical and they have a flexible structure.
- Matrix Structure: It is a combination of both the functional structure and the divisional structure. In this, the reporting relationships of the employees are set up in the form of a matrix or a grid, avoiding that traditional approach for doing the same.
You can always customize the way you want create your organization structure as per your needs, vision and mission.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How to create an organization tree?
Earlier this process was done manually, taking all day long but now we have a lot of ease in doing so with the basic tools present in your laptop and phones like Excel, we can create organisation tree. For more advanced version, we can utilise HRMS suits
What are the key components typically included in an organization tree?
Essentially, the key components to be included in an organization chart are
- Work specialization
- Departmentalization and compartments
- Reporting hierarchy
- Responsibilities and roles
How does an organizational tree help in visualizing the hierarchy and reporting structure within an organization?
Organization tree visually represents the hierarchy of the organization using different ways. It shows the flow of the responsibilities and roles from the highest position to the lowest ones. It makes it easy to understand the complex working structure of the organization quickly.
What are the mistakes to avoid when creating organizational tree?
Common mistakes that one needs to avoid while creating the organization tree are
- Showing wrong hierarchies
- Dividing the departments in a complex way
- Decentralizing the roles and responsibilities
- Making a complex structure
- Leaving out certain people
Conclusion
In this fast-moving world, there is a need for every company to establish modern techniques to make a space for themselves in a competitive environment. 92% of the companies, according to Deloitte’s Report , believe that redesigning is important for them.
As we come towards the end of this very erudite write-up that answer all our questions about the organization tree like what it means, what are the benefits of making one, how to create one, how many types of organization tree we can make and much more.
I hope we helped you to enlighten your knowledge. We’ll keep bringing more in for you! Till then keep reading, keep thinking and keep HRing!