Last Updated on March 17, 2024 by Owen McGab Enaohwo
Organizations that are concerned with improving their business structures and communications should place a high priority on developing effective organizational charts.
This chart improves collaboration, streamlines information flow, and aids internal interactions and responsiveness of employees and other business stakeholders.
Research by Workforce shows that 60% of companies don’t have a long-term strategy for their internal communications. This makes them lose loyal customers and valued employees.
Certainly, when there is a distortion in the communication process, humans lose trust in the business or individual they’re dealing with.
In this post, I’ll share with you 52 organizational chart templates that you can use to solve your communication problem, define your business hierarchical structures and attract new employees.
Chapter One: Organizational Chart Templates: What Are They?
What is an organizational chart template?
Organizational chart templates are pre-formatted chart guides that help you to quickly create an organizational structure.
They detail the generic structure of the human capacity of your organization and require you to fill in other relevant information that is particular to your business.
They also include contact information such as roles, users, etc., and are regularly updated for accuracy and seamless organizational operations.
It is also arranged in a manner that informs superiority and the likely communication process in your organization.
Why use an organizational chart template?
As important as an organizational chart is, many organizations don’t feel the need to have one due to time constraints.
However, organizational chart templates solve this problem as they allow you to create organizational charts easily and with total flexibility.
Organizational chart templates let you update organization charts with regular consistency as it provides you with the independence of choice and details.
It also reduces your work and re-work time as you no longer have to create new organizational charts from scratch.
When to use an organizational chart template
You use organizational chart templates when you need to create many organizational charts for each department, or you need to create them fast. This way, you spend a small fraction of your time as you basically plug and play your employees’ details into the charts.
Also, when creating your organizational chart and you don’t have the luxury of time or lack the inspiration of where and how to start, organization chart templates are your best bet. The element, design, and structure are already in place. All you need to do is input your employee details.
Another good thing about using organizational charts templates is that it seamlessly allows you to organize your employees’ information to avoid information overload and get the chance to observe best practices in your creation.
This lets you focus less on designs, standards, and arrangement and more on quality content and your employees’ details.
When is it best not to use an organizational chart template?
It’s best to steer clear of organizational chart templates when you need to create a unique and standard organization chart, and you’ve got the time and energy to invest in it.
This is good as it makes your organizational chart stand out from the thousands on the internet, and you won’t be restricted by the designs or structures done in the templates. That way, you will be able to channel your creativity and create room for your company’s specific information and employee’s unique data.
Do you really need a template to get an organizational chart done?
Top management officers often ask if they really need a template to get an organizational chart done.
The response depends on the person asking the question, their skills, and other purposes for creating the organizational structure.
For instance, if you’re presenting your organizational structures to investors, you wouldn’t want to do an okay job but an exceptional one.
So, do you really need a template to get an organization chart done?
No, if you have solid graphics or web design skills.
No, if you have the time and energy to make your own.
But if you don’t have these, you may be needing an organizational chart template.
Chapter Two: Types of Organizational Charts
Organizational charts serve different purposes as they represent different workplace structures.
The organizational chart varies in types, either for top-bottom, reverse, or linear. Below are four types of organizational structure charts.
Matrix Organizational Structure Chart
The matrix organizational structure chart is the type that has more than one manager slot for a particular department. It combines functional and divisional models by grouping employees by their function, then further separates them into divisions by the type of work done.
This is typical in a technology department such as a software development department where the team of developers is headed by a senior web developer who checks and audits junior developers’ code, and another manager, say the web project manager, who manages the projects developers are working on.
Functional Organizational Structure Chart
As the name implies, the functional organization structure chart organizes people by their functions. Pretty simple: the customer insight department is grouped under an entirely different department as the customer experience or customer care because their functions are altogether different.
And similarly, in a broad view, marketing, finance, legal, engineering, etc., departments are segmented as their functions differ.
Though this organizational structure slows down decision-making and limits inter-departmental upskilling, it creates ultra-specific experts in specific departments.
Divisional Organizational Structure Chart
In this type of organizational structure, the employees are grouped by the specific products or projects that the company has as their offerings to their clients.
It happens mainly in manufacturing and construction firms where certain employee groups are products like culinary products and infant products, or construction companies where electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering divisions are made based on the company’s service.
Horizontal Organizational Structure Chart
Also known as the flat structure, the horizontal organizational structure is used in companies with few managers but many employees. This structure provides employees with the authority to make some critical decisions without relying on any manager for approval.
This power builds employee empowerment, motivates them, and commits them to be a stakeholder in the company.
Unlike the matrix organizational structure type, this flat organizational structure erases the top-down management system and replaces it with a democratized no-boss system.
Chapter Three: Microsoft Word Organizational Chart Templates
Below are organizational chart templates, which you may download for free, tweak, and use for your organization in Word.
- Warehouse Operations Organizational Chart Template
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
This organizational chart template helps warehouse owners to run their operations smoothly. It entails how to effectively use space, facilities, and labor, to meet the needs and requirements of their customers.
- Fire Department Command Organization Chart Template
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The fire department command organization chart template highlights the communication path and work levels of firefighters so that they can address fire incidents in an organized way and by following relevant protocols.
- IT Gaming Company Organizational Chart Template
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The IT gaming companies’ chart template lists out the key stakeholders that will ensure the smooth running of the enterprise. From game development to marketing and monetizing of video games, this chart ensures that the gaming business functions profitably.
- E-commerce Marketing Organizational Chart Template
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The e-commerce marketing organization chart template ensures that a company has an online commerce team that is capable of actualizing market plans into action. It entails the roles in a solid and organized structure to boost the accomplishment of your marketing objectives.
- Insurance Agency Organizational Chart Template
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This insurance agency organization chart template provides a directional flow of how situations are addressed when accidents happen. Whether someone gets hit by a car or a family member gets hospitalized, the insurance company will have a workflow that lets them provide better service to clients and become well-known in the market.
- Startup Sales Team Organizational Chart Template
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The startup sales team organizational chart template shows the process that a startup can design their sales team for efficient costing and profitability. It puts into consideration that the company might not have the necessary budget to hold a standard team, so it gives room for personnel to wear as many professional hats as possible.
- Sports Agency Organizational Chart Template
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This sports agency organizational chart template helps sporting sections to function well with its organized structure. This ensures that the development of the training facilities, team coaching, technicalities, and the health of the athletes are carefully organized, and everyone is carried along.
- Employee Succession Planning Organizational Chart Template
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This employee succession planning organizational chart template equips the company with the essential requirements for planning the company’s future. In addition, it factors in the career growth of each employee and shows how they can be equipped for future roles in your organization.
- Company Tree Organizational Chart Template
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The company tree organizational chart is a creative format for presenting the departmental flow of any organization. It itemizes each department and the relevant roles needed for its optimal functionality.
- Large Hotel Organizational Chart Template
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This large hotel organizational chart provides the best route for large hotels to deliver quality customer service for hotel guests. This houses the process of creating a secure and smooth internal operation.
- Air Force Management Organizational Chart Template
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The air force management organizational chart template helps set up key positions and responsibilities for the professionals who work in the field. It also states the level at which every key role must act, how communication should flow, and the involved channel.
- Organizational Chart Template for Marketing Team
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The organizational chart template for the marketing team guides you and your company on how your marketing team should be. It highlights the different areas of marketing and supporting roles that make every offline and online marketing successful.
- Organization Chart Template for Corporate Business
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This organizational chart template for corporate business highlights how the managers of the corporation distribute authority. This creates a significant level for all managers and categorizes it by the authority and number of teams they manage.
- Board of Directors Organization Chart Template
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The board of directors organizational chart template is a chart template that shows how the board of directors in any organization should be put together. It’s simply an array of directors with the president/CEO at the top of the board. This is because all directors are equal by default.
Chapter Four: Organizational Chart Template For Excel
Below is an organizational chart template for Excel, which you may download for free, tweak, and use for your organization.
- Childcare Organization Chart Template
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
This childcare organization chart is an Excel format organo-chart that shows how a typical child care organization should look. It highlights all the key areas of child development, like physical, health, educational and emotional, and places experts accordingly and their roles in ensuring the development of a healthy child.
Chapter Five: Organizational Chart Templates For Powerpoint
Below are organizational chart templates for Powerpoint, which you may download for free, tweak, and use for your organization.
- Travel Company Organizational Chart Template
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
The travel company organization chart template shows how a typical travel company should run its leadership. It shows that the company should be headed by a president, then under this role, a vice president, then under the vice president, there should be several directors from marketing and finance to tours, planning and coordination, and resources.
- Content/Editorial Publishing Company Organizational Chart Template
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This content and editorial publishing company organizational chart template details how publication companies should work. It shows how a publisher interacts with the editor-in-chief, then the editor, the creative head who oversees designs, and the marketing team that takes care of all the marketing of the product or services created.
Chapter Six: Organizational Chart Templates PDF
Below are organizational chart templates for PDF, which you may download for free, tweak, and use for your organization.
- Organization Chart Template for a Hospital
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
This healthcare organizational chart template structures how healthcare business companies should run their operations. It presents the strengths of the hospital director and other associate directors like that of administration. Included are diagnostic services, financial services, support services, therapeutic services, and how they can help direct patients to the right provider.
- Organization Chart Template for an IT Company
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
The organizational chart template for IT companies shows how running an IT company can put together an established organizational structure, devices, and subscriptions. It details how the CEO leads the chief finance officer, chief technology officer, and other strategic managers that will make the company run at tremendous growth.
- Organization Chart Template for Bank
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This organizational chart template for banks shows how banks can improve their organizational efficiencies by critically aligning roles and responsibilities. It includes bank personnel from the board of directors to the CEO, managers, and other departmental heads like the general banking department, inspection, human resources, risk management, cash and treasury management, etc.
- Organizational Chart Templates for Pharma Quality Control
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The pharma quality control organizational chart template, or quality assurance chart template, lets you make a visual diagram showing the responsible personnel and hierarchical direction of ensuring top-quality control production, management, and delivery in the pharmaceutical organization.
- Organization Chart Template for Airline
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The organizational chart template for the airline provides onboard crew members with the guide to intersect between the passengers and the company. It details how the CEO interacts with each department that makes airline operations successful. This involves the finance department, the investment, and technology department, the corporate development and IT department, etc.
- Organization Chart Template for Hotel
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The organization chart template for hotels shows hospitality businesses how they and their team members can identify the functions of each staff member. It takes the operations from the general manager, who might have an assistant, then spreads the runnings to the food and beverage director, sales manager, customer service, human resources, etc.
- Organizational Chart Templates for Universities
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The organizational chart template for the university presents a comprehensive organizational chart for the academic and non-academic spread of staff members. It ensures that situations are placed in a way that gets addressed by accountable personnel. Also, it touches on how students can interact with that hierarchical level and internally manages its leadership.
- Organization Chart Template for Clothing Company
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The clothing company organizational chart template maps out how efficiently running the organization can be possible with proper role assigning and responsibility-sharing. It draws the pointers from the fabric scene and touches on product creation, marketing, etc.
- Organization Chart Template for University Library
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This organization chart template for university libraries was created to build a system that helps library users get better results when inquiring about the catalogs and book archives.
It helps put together a team assigned with different roles and responsibilities of managing the library successfully. This starts with the provost, then the library director, then spreads down to the research and learning department, IT and digital scholarship, etc.
- Organizational Chart Template for a Creative Company
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The organizational chart template for a creative company allows users to create a team of well-grounded individuals to oversee the creative organization. This includes the development of products in different formats from audio to video and still images. This helps put everything together, including the non-creatives that manage operations and service delivery.
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
The organizational chart template for the transportation department helps identify the individual strengths needed to ensure seamless transportation. This may involve how the traffic lights work, the movements of the parts and process, and aligning the roles and procedures to ensure smooth runnings.
- Organizational Chart Template for Retail Enterprise
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This organization chart template for retail enterprises is a well-crafted chart that eases the management of a retail business. It displays the necessary roles and responsibilities that you must create for your team and how everyone can work hand-in-hand to ensure efficient customer delivery.
- Organizational Chart Template for Human Resources Department
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This chart makes it easier for HR personnel to execute their duties. By updating and observing the functionalities expressed therein, you get the perfect tool that you need to attract and retain the right talents in your organization.
- Research Organizational Chart Template
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This research organization template simplifies what a research company should be like. It places the director at the top and shows the need to have two VPs, highlighting that one should be the VP of administration and operations, and the other should be for institutional research. It also creates room for other relevant roles like the financial officer, project manager, and research coordinator.
- Donation Organizational Chart Template
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This donation organization chart template reveals the roles and responsibilities required in a fundraising company. It shows a pathway for efficiently receiving donations, the process, and how it’s allocated to the right items and needs. It involves the board of directors, the fundraising committee, the nominating committee, the budget and finance committee, and several others.
- Resort Organizational Chart Template
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Resorts always have a pool of staff members, and managing them is hard. This resort organizational chart template will help you identify the talent gaps and help you build staff members that will make your resort a large and well-known place to reckon with.
It starts with the general manager, then the accounting, marketing, human resources, food and beverage, activities and special events, room operations, and many others.
- Military Organizational Chart Template
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The military organizational chart template starts by having the secretary of defense, then the secretary of the army, the secretary of the navy, and the secretary of the air force on the same cadre, then the chief of staff of each arm on a similar cadre. This critical field has to be carefully assigned as security is essential in every environment.
- Defense Health Agency Organizational Chart Template
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The defense health agency organization chart template is important as it helps to increase the military’s readiness. However, without having the right team in place to make this happen, the security department will be at risk. This template provides the pyramid of roles and responsibilities that will support the agency to achieve its mission.
- Civil Defense Organizational Chart Template
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The civil defense organizational chart template provides an overview of the needed expertise to defend civil society. It eases your process of creating the list and plots the ranks of your employees and officials on that functional chart. You can begin with the director, then flow down to the deputy director, security policy and plans, preparedness team, operations, etc.
- Defense Office Organizational Chart Template
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The defense office organizational chart template uses the deputy secretary of defense as the lead. Then it has four under-secretaries that range from intelligence, personal readiness, acquisition, technology, and logistics. This template allows you to identify the roles and responsibilities and create a better working relationship with other security departments.
- Public Library Organizational Chart Template
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The public library organization chart template helps you put together the necessary talent to ensure that the library offers great services to the users. This could range from a proper organization of services, efficient book allocation, and adopting relevant services that help the library achieve its mission of creating a better reading society, research section, and access to opportunities.
- Front Office Organizational Chart Template
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The front office organizational chart template helps you to create a better flow of attending to guests, vendors, and staff in your organization. It involves having the reservations manager, guest relations manager, chief concierge, reception manager, night auditor, and a host of others and showing their relationship and distribution of responsibility in the front office.
- Budget Office Organizational Chart Template
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The budget office organization chart guides companies on the effective management of the budgeting of the government or company. It involves having the chief finance officer, then the office of strategic planning, and the office of budget and operations. It also involves having services like consulting, operational analysis, and budget execution.
- AD Agency Organizational Chart Template
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The ad agency organizational chart is the chart that shows how an ad agency works. As an ad agency, it shows the board of directors, general manager, and all other managers like the planning sector, ad preparation sector, placement execution manager, etc. The benefit is to ensure that the agency runs smoothly.
- Graphic Design Company Organizational Chart Template
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The graphics design company organizational chart allows you to create a system in which your staff can be accountable for their various duties, roles, and the way they interact with other stakeholders. It also helps you create how your staff functioning arrangement should be and the success that lies therein.
- Scrum Team Organization Chart Template
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The scrum team organizational chart template details the roles and responsibilities required for a scrum team to be put in place to effectively handle a project. This involves a flow between the product owner, scrum master, the UI/UX designer, and the software development team.
- Product Scrum Team Organizational Chart Template
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The product scrum team organizational chart shows the team needed to actualize the primary responsibility, efficient communication, and the proper functioning of the product scrum team. It involves showing the role of the product owner, scrum master, engineer, researcher, etc., and equips them to be able to organize their tasks.
Chapter Seven: Organizational Chart Templates for Google Docs and Google Slides
Below are organizational chart templates for Google Docs and Google Slides, which you may download for free, tweak, and use for your organization.
- Cross-functional Organizational Chart Template
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The cross-functional engineering team organizational chart template helps you gather the necessary talents to efficiently run your startup. It provides a sensible mix of the needed team for maximum profit and lowers costs. It divides the management into production heads, manufacturing heads, and quality management teams.
- Organizational Chart Template for Accounting Department
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The accounting department organizational chart template provides the required team to effectively run the accounting department of your company. It starts with the chief financial officer, then spreads to the director, then the accounts receivable manager, accounts payable manager, payroll manager, and expenses manager.
- Organizational Chart Template of a City Police Department
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The organizational chart template of a city police department creates a view of the needed talents to effectively secure the lives and properties of the people in a particular city. It includes the chief of police, then the crossing guards, the admin assistant, and the lieutenant. Then it spreads to the sergeant, records clerk, etc.
- Organizational Chart Template for Law Office
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This law office organizational chart template details how a law company should work. It begins with the CEO, then leads to the executive director in charge of financial operations, executive director of legal studies, executive director of IT services, and the executive director of strategy and planning. Also, each of them has other team members like the budget analyst, criminal lawyer, corporate records manager, and head of business reporting.
- Organizational Chart Template for Non-Profit Research Institute
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
The non-profit research institute organizational chart template details the required talents and officers for a non-profit research institute to efficiently carry out projects. This starts with the vice president of research, then continues with the director of research, chief technology officer, chief administrative officer, director of the laboratory, and chief financial officer.
- Organizational Chart Template for Army Department
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The army department organizational chart template is designed to accommodate roles like the secretary of the army, chief of staff who also doubles as the head of the force policy committee, then the operations and plan department, personnel department, logistics department, and the research and development department, etc.
- Organizational Chart Template for Environmental Services
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The environmental services organizational chart template clearly explains how the positions in the environmental service company should be filled. It begins with the director and spreads along with the solid waste programs division manager, the water and sewer system division manager, regulatory programs division manager, and water pollution control plant division manager. Each of these divisions has specific personnel who handle the collection, recycling, and disposal services.
- Construction Engineering Organizational Chart Template
Click here to download this Organizational Chart Template
The construction engineering organizational chart comprises the board of directors, the general manager, who directly leads the project manager, engineering manager, financial manager, and marketing manager. Also under the project manager is the documenter, site engineer, surveyor, and safety supervisor. Then under the engineering manager is the site manager, structural engineer, planning manager, and QC personnel, etc.
Chapter Eight: How to Create an Organizational Chart in MS Word
If you want to create an organizational chart from scratch using MS Word, the video below shows you a step-by-step guide on how to make that happen:
Chapter Nine: How to Create an Organizational Chart in Excel
The video below walks you through the steps you should take to create an organizational chart in Excel. If you’re looking to create an org chart for your company from scratch, this video will help you greatly.
Chapter Ten: How to Create an Organizational Chart in Powerpoint Using a Template
Here is a step-by-step video walkthrough that shows you the exact process for creating an organizational chart in PowerPoint. This will come in handy if you prefer to create an org chart for your company from scratch.
Chapter Eleven: 5 Things You Must Do After Filling Out Your Organizational Chart Template
Now that you’ve chosen and filled out the organizational chart template for your company, here are five things you must do before you start using it for your organization.
- Review and revise for accuracy
Since you’re working with a template, it makes sense to review and revise the information on the organizational chart for accuracy. Check if it aligns accurately with your company’s goals, vision, and mission. Confirm if every role listed on the org chart applies to your organization. If possible, you should send a copy of the org chart to your employees to check and review for any corrections or additions.
- Format the chart
Another thing you must do after filling out the organizational chart template is to format it. First, you should format the chart to fit on a single page. That way, it will be easy for anyone to read the information on the chart. Aside from that, it’s recommended that you present the chart in a landscape format. This makes it possible to contain enough information as needed on a single page.
- Arrange the chart chronologically
If you don’t want the chart to be crowded with information, then you should arrange it. The best way to go about this is to group employees with the same job title together. Hence, it will be much easier to know who is responsible for what. Also, you should consider grouping assistants with their managers. That way, they’ll know who they report to directly.
- Use a consistent design
Keeping the design of your chart consistent is important to make it more readable and easy to understand. Employees on the same level should be designed on the chart with boxes of similar sizes. Also, you should always make sure that you list out the titles of the employees before mentioning their names in the org chart. This will go a long way if there’s a need to make a change in the future.
- Create a digital version of the chart
Having a printed copy of the organizational chart is important, especially in a big organization. However, you should also strive to have a digital version of the chart too. This makes it less complicated to make changes in the future. Not only that, you can link directly to other useful information such as the policy and procedure templates, that’ll be helpful to your employees.
Chapter Twelve: Build an Efficient Organizational Structure For Your Business Using SweetProcess
With SweetProcess, you can build an efficient organizational structure for your business.
An organizational structure creates a visual representation of your core team and serves as a management tool for planning and personnel directory.
For instance, Resolute Legal started with the absence of a structure in the business, which caused a hindrance in achieving their business goals. Upon finding and creating an organizational structure with SweetProcess, the owner was able to hire employees who would champion his business goals.
He hired a team and documented their duties in the system without having to teach them every little detail in person.
He also created a beneficial knowledge transfer system that helps employees stay in touch with the latest work-related information.
If you need to develop and put a system around adherence to your organization’s regulatory standard so that you can operate within the confines of the law, SweetProcess is your best tool as it helps tailor your employee development in alignment with the government-laid regulatory standards.
An Australian brewing company, Stone & Wood, achieved this using SweetProcess. In fact, their quality assurance and sensory coordinator said about SweetProcess: “It really helps us a lot with standard requirements that are out there like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) where you have to demonstrate that your employees have been trained and show procedure documents, so it ticks all the boxes there.”
In addition to that, they used SweetProcess in simplifying their employee onboarding and training, updating the latest process versions, and created a centralized knowledge base for their team.
You can get started with a 14-day free trial of SweetProcess to build an efficient organizational structure for your business. No credit card is required.
Conclusion
Having a good organizational structure will help your business in a lot of ways. One, it will give the decision-makers in the company a better overview of how everything works in the organization. Two, it helps employees understand the organizational structure better and perform their tasks diligently.
Aside from that, it will improve your organizational capacity to carry out its strategy and objectives.
Companies with excellent organizational structures will be able to effectively provide guidance and task clarity and reporting guidance for their employees.
Want to know the organizational chart templates to use for your company?
Click here to download the templates relevant to your industry.
Source for some of the templates: TemplateLab