How to Fix a Complex Org Chart: 10+ Org Chart Mistakes

Aiming to have a clean-cut company organization structure is a best practice regardless of the company's size. The whole point of creating an org chart is to make it a breeze to understand roles, responsibilities, and reporting lines. It should also be readily available for various team members to allocate and navigate.

If a person can't easily figure out who reports to whom or who's in charge of what, then your org chart is failing to deliver. Ideally, any given detail about a department or its employees has to be simple to comprehend at a glance. And if the org chart only leads to confusion, this hinders communication and productivity, making the chart worthless.

The bottom line is that the chart shouldn't seem like a treasure map with missing pieces or a puzzle to solve. The goal is to create an org chart that's intuitive and straightforward to grasp. To help you untangle the mess, we'll go over the tips and tricks on fixing a complex org chart to make it meaningful and transparent. We'll share why it can get sloppy and what to do to make it right.

Confusing Org Chart Factors

What makes an org chart confusing? And what causes an organizational chart to be messy? Well, although there exist various types of org charts, all the trouble essentially begins with a lack of clarity and illogical structures.

Messy or Absent Hierarchy

One frequent error is misrepresenting the hierarchy. If the hierarchy is unclear or missing altogether, people raise their eyebrows in confusion since they don't understand the roles and areas of responsibility. You have to mind that those who turn to org charts expect to see an explicit chain of authority, depicting the leadership, management, and other subordinate roles.

A hierarchy is the backbone that mirrors the real decision-making structure in an organization. It must logically depict the departments, teams, and reporting lines. Therefore, the clusters, groups, units, and levels in the "company tree" must be complete and shown correctly.

Disordered or Wrong Lines

Things are usually okay when the reporting relationships are linear, but what happens to the chart if there are cross-functional or collaborative teams? Right, the lines start intersecting.

It's common for modern companies to have intricate setups that include matrix or cross-department connections. If handled by a rookie, the multiple intersections and direct reports typically result in a confusing org chart, making it as bewildering to grasp as trying to get around in subways in metropolises like Moscow or Seoul. Plus, it'll probably give only a limited view of how the organization really works.

Too Much Focus on Job Titles

Prioritizing job titles over actual responsibilities may bring about confusion about who does what. A person's title has to serve as a signal about their authority, expertise, or even specific duties. The mission of org chart titles is to provide a straightforward explanation of someone's responsibilities in a given position, which is twice as important if a single person handles several roles. But titles can sometimes be misused, ambiguous, or vague, which essentially creates more confusion.

Incomplete or Outdated Data 

If you don't update the chart regularly, it'll feature information that doesn't reflect the actual corporate structure. What's the point of having a chart that keeps featuring those who left the company or switched departments? One looking at the chart probably wants to find the right colleague to turn to for resolving a matter, and a chart that's missing relevant information will point them to a dead end.

7 Common Organization Chart Mistakes [With Tips to Avoid Them]

Lots of errors can take you a few steps closer to having a super ineffective organizational chart. After all, if it's not as easy as pie, having it is pointless. Here's what you should try to avoid if you don't want a complex org chart and what you can do to make sure it is clear and easy to follow.

Having Charts with Data Gaps

First of all, it is important to be consistent and share the same amount of information for every employee so that the chart doesn't have gaps. Your chart could become crooked in no time if some "boxes" are half-empty while others are rich in details.

If you don't want the chart to cause misunderstandings or give rise to even more unanswered questions, you need explicit and simple-to-grasp information. This implies organizing the information and marking all the positions clearly from the CEO, leaders, and supervisors to their subordinates.

Some advice here would be to determine a fixed number of obligatory points with the essentials that have to be present on the chart. Then, update the chart only when all must-have fields are filled out.

Overcrowding the Chart with Too Many Details

At the same time, ask yourself, is the chart trying to show too much? Of course, it can be massive if the company has hundreds of employees based in different locations. But even with many levels, the information has to be well-structured and not overloaded.

Certainly, the chart could be a valuable asset if it shares key details like the person's name, photo, role, direct manager, and so on. Some charts take it a step up and add contact details for faster communication.

But some information may appear abundant (for example, adding each employee's bio or work history can induce overstuffed chaos) especially if shown on a paper-based or static chart. The best practice here would be to review the shown information and remove unnecessary details. The simpler, the better if you don't want to be stuck with a confusing org chart!

Opting for Weak Design and Navigation

Organizational charts give you a bird's-eye view of the company. They let you visualize who is working with whom like a blueprint of a house that showcases the rooms and other property details.

And no matter if it's a top-down, divisional, flat, or matrix type of chart, it should be easy to navigate, have a clean design, and be intuitive and user-friendly. The information featured on the chart has to be readable. The rows and elements must be neat to avoid possible misinterpretation.

Not Making the Org Chart Scalable

You might spend hours thinking through the chart and organizing the roles to reflect the company's hierarchy. And this solution might be more than okay in the current team configuration. But oftentimes staff size grows, and the initial chart becomes inefficient.

Because companies are always changing, their org structures must keep pace. You need to consider possible team expansion scenarios at the earliest stages. A forward-thinking approach that lets you future-proof the chart for scalability is a way out here.

Not Aligning the Chart with Business Goals

Susceptibility to change is one constant across all companies worldwide, it's simply inevitable. An organization's goals, mission, or strategy can shift be it driven by new leadership, consumer trends, or some other external factors. And whenever there's a change, the structure has to be capable of adjusting accordingly. This is why it's crucial to keep the org chart aligned, reflecting the workflows and relationships.

Not Making the Chart Accessible and Safe

It's not always easy for users to access the chart. Say, if it's in a spreadsheet, sharing rules can become a bottleneck. Ideally, org charts should be accessible and simple to use from anywhere, even their smartphones or other devices.

But there's another side, security. Organization charts often include sensitive company data and personal employee details like phone numbers, emails, birthdays, and so on. Since there's always a risk of privacy breaches, access controls and securing your chart storage are musts.

Not Keeping the Data Fresh

Many companies create their org charts using design tools like Figma or by configuring templates. Sure, this method can help put together something neat, visually appealing, and possibly even non-static.

But on the down side, this still means you need to go back to the given tool or template every time someone gets hired, fired, promoted, and so on. Manual org chart upkeep and editing pose a big challenge to those who have to keep it fresh and relevant. It's a time-consuming task that can become a headache even if you need to add minor tweaks.

The solution? Choosing in favor of dynamic org chart technology that'll help keep the data evergreen. Obviously, this implies linking up solutions that can pull real-time data from a CRM, HR system, or other source, automatically updating the hierarchy based on the freshest data imports.

How to Fix a Complicated Org Chart: Org Chart Best Practices

An org chart's mission is to provide a person with information on a colleague or employee quickly and easily. Because it is utilized during onboarding, by management, and for other work-related purposes, it should remove barriers and help address problems. This is precisely why you should regularly review the org chart or adopt technologically advanced solutions to lessen manual work and make the most out of them.

Tip 1: Audit the Chart for Relevance

When should an organizational chart be updated? Whenever there's a change like an additional hire, layoff, department switch, promotion, among others. For some companies, this happens on a weekly basis. Therefore, you can start by auditing your current chart:

• make a comprehensive revision of the org chart;
• check that all the reporting lines are relevant;
• look for overlaps and inconsistencies; 
• note what to fix if there's inaccurate data;
• remove outdated information.

Tip 2: Enhance the Chart's Design

Even a complex org chart diagram has to be easy for a user to grasp. You need to not only illustrate but also chart out the representation of the company's human resources and roles according to the UX/UI best practices.

How do you achieve effective design and navigation when making org charts? Do your best to guide viewers through the chart by using consistent visual elements and clear labels to keep it informative but well-trimmed. Use clear typography and sufficient white space to avoid visual clutter.

Select legible font sizes and use them consistently throughout the chart. Be careful with color use, as it's an instrument that can highlight important information but could end up in a rainbow mess if used ineffectively. Not overcomplicating the design is important too, so select standard symbols and an elegant color scheme.

Making it interactive is a bonus. You're free to add elements like hover effects or tooltips to provide additional context.

As previously mentioned, it's also essential to mind the dynamic nature of org charts when choosing in favor of a certain design. You need to make sure it's flexible and easy to update when new roles appear or you have to move or delete something.

Tip 3: Add Vital Details for More Value

Remember that your chart doesn't have to be limited to showing only the reporting relationships. You're free to add other important details that'll supplement the chart and help it bring extra insights.

What information could be useful? For example, you can add what a specific person is accountable for and their projects apart from just their job title. You may also mention key contact information like their work email, making it easier to reach out to them directly.

As long as you don't add too much, though, there should be a balance between a clean visual interface and providing access to detailed information when needed, since you probably don't wish to end up with a complicated org chart. If your chart is interactive, consider adding filters, hiding some details, and making additional information available in a dropdown or by clicking on a person's profile.

Tip 4: Use It for Planning Future Team Growth

Another important point is that you don't have to show just the current talent pool, mind possible growth early in the design process. You can even make an outline "dotting" your plans for future hires or the long-term reorganization strategy. For instance, this can be very helpful for a startup seeking funding and presenting its company growth intentions.

Pro Tip: Automate Your Org Charts

As we've mentioned, upkeeping the chart to be evergreen manually can be particularly problematic. But a designated tool that can automate such processes as org chart creation and real-time data updates can definitely lighten the burden. 

To do so, you can make use of effective builders or specially designed tools for creating org charts like OrgaNice, an org chart builder for Slack.

OrgaNice is an HR tool, and a live org chart is one of the neat features available in the package. Here's what it can do:

1. Make org chart creation effortless — it can create a dynamic org chart in minutes using AI as it integrates with Slack to pull team data from the directory and auto-generate a preliminary structure.

2. Employee profile management — the tool prompts employees via Slack to fill out their profiles right in the workspace, asking for essential details like job titles and contact info, ensuring to pull accurate and up-to-date information.

3. Automates org chart updates — When the profiles are set up, OrgaNice assembles an org chart and keeps it current by automatically reflecting changes in roles, departments, or personnel, saving time on manual updates.

4. Includes lots of extra features — it also automates welcome messages for new hires, generates reports, and supports employee referral programs. Not to mention such included in-Slack solutions as employee time off tracking, birthday and anniversary celebration, a simple team surveying tool, and more.

Final Thoughts on Fixing a Complex Organizational Chart

The versatility of org charts is a significant advantage, allowing organizations of all sizes and growth stages to use them in various ways. Your org charts have to provide a clear overview of the hierarchy of your organization, possibly supplementing the "tree" with additional personal details like contact information. Otherwise, it makes no sense to have the chart in the first place as it won't bring the needed insights and might be misleading altogether.

Because people come and go, staff size grows, and company structures evolve, it is crucial to have a flexible org chart tool at hand that will aid collaboration. One that can automate updates, be visually appealing and functional, and always keep the data fresh.

If your team uses Slack for communication, you can unburden your HRs or those in charge of the org charts by passing this task to OrgaNice. This solution is an entire Slack-first engagement platform packed with other features you can make use of, including an employee time off tracker, kudos tool, congratulations bot, employee survey builder, and more. If you'd like a demo or have any questions, such as regarding the value you can get from the tool, don't be shy to reach out to us, we'll be glad to talk!