Organizational Chart Maker | Creately (2024)

Organizational Chart Templates

Org Chart Starter Template

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Replacement Org Chart

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Org Chart Template

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What is an Organizational Chart?

Organizational charts, also known as hierarchical charts and organograms, are traditionally used to show the structure of an organization and the different relationships between workers or various departments within the organization. However, they can also be used to identify gaps in your organization, highlight the performance of your employees, track their performance goals, and highlight roles and responsibilities.

How to Make an Organizational Chart

Based on whether you are creating the organizational chart for a project team, department, or the entire organization, identify each and every employee that should be represented. This may include a fair bit of research, especially if it’s a large organization. Talk to team heads or supervisors to understand the job roles and the reporting relationships between the employees they are leading.
While you can start right away with one of Creately’s prebuilt org chart templates, you can enable the organizational chart shape library and start from scratch. If you are collaborating with other departmental heads, simply add them to the workspace as collaborators or share an edit link with them. With real-time previews and live mouse tracking, you can track their contributions to the org chart and stay synced even if you aren’t in the same room.
With the company, department, or team head at the top of the organizational chart, add the rest of the members based on hierarchy and the reporting relationships.
Drag and drop or import images of your employees right from your device to personalize your org chart.
You can store additional details on each employee (such as their contact information, the projects they are working on, etc.) with the shapes’ custom properties and data fields. This way you can build a record base for further reference.
Once completed, export your org chart in PDF, SVG, or PNG format to embed it in any intranet or site, or share it with others.

Organizational Chart Articles

Organizational Chart Examples for Any OrganizationAll the organizational chart examples listed below can be edited online using our org chart software. Once you’re done you can export them and add them to your presentation, website or document...

7 Types of Organizational StructuresThe hierarchical model is the most popular organizational chart type. There are a few models that are derived from this model....

How to Manage Your Company’s Growth with Org ChartsA growing company brings more than one challenge to any leadership team. Going from a 3 person team to a 10 person company to then growing to 20 or 50 people brings about extremely different sets of challenges...

Manage your Project better with Organization ChartsThink that this is probably just a one-off example we cracked our brains at? Think again. Let’s consider a marketing department where you are the boss. You have two executives working for you on various research projects....

5 Reasons why HR Managers love Organizational ChartsHR managers in companies have been using organizational chart software for decades to fulfil a very basic but significant function. These managers have used org charts to form the modus operandi of a company...

FAQs About Organizational Charts

What are the uses of an organizational chart?

An org chart can be helpful in a number of ways.

Org charts help highlight internal organizational structures and hierarchies
Help better understand the reporting relationships within the team or department
Centralize employee details including contact details in one place
Help identify talent gaps and help with workforce planning
They help new hires understand the roles and responsibilities of their colleagues and how they fit in

What are the most important elements of an org chart?

By adding certain elements to your organizational chart, you can improve its use and turn it into a powerful human resource management tool. When drawing an org chart you can include the following elements,

Photos - help people get to know each other by connecting names to faces
Contact information - streamline better communication by making contact information easily available
Core responsibilities - helps everyone understand what their tasks are and skills
Locations - help clarify the different time zones of remote employees

What are the top tips for creating an effective org chart?

Whether you are using an organizational chart maker such as Creately or drawing it manually, here are some tips for creating effective organizational charts.

Keep your org chart at the right size; not too large, not too small. A larger org chart may confuse and overwhelm the reader, therefore you can break it up into smaller org charts visualizing the hierarchies of different departments separately. With Creately’s organizational chart maker, you can link up the secondary-level org charts to the main one and create an easy navigational path.
Be consistent with the shapes and colors you use for your org chart. You can use one shape to represent higher-level employees and another shape to represent mid-level employees. And you can use different colors for each department.
Include all relevant information in an easy-to-retrieve manner. While key details such as name, designation, and responsibilities can be displayed on the org chart shape itself, additional details such as contact information or specialties can be stored under shape data or notes in Creately. This way it won’t clutter up the organizational chart with a lot of information at a glance.

For more best practices, refer to our article here.