Organizational structure chart
- What redrawing it by hand costs a year
- $228
- Boxes the chart needs
- 128
- Managers the span implies
- 15
- People with nobody reporting to them
- 105
These sheets have no constants. Every number is worked from the figures you enter: the headcount, the span of control, the people at the top, the contractors, the redraws and the minutes each takes, the profile fields and how complete they are, the lookups a week, the minutes a lookup takes, the hourly costs, the joiners and leavers, and the dotted-line share, count, check-in length and interval. The defaults are one 120-person company's worked example, not a benchmark this site publishes.
The figures are a worked example for a company of 120 people: $228. Put your own headcount in and the answer changes.
Download the Organizational structure chart worked example (CSV)
This is the organizational chart planner, and it answers the question that has to be settled before a single box is placed: what shape does the company you actually have imply? Enter the headcount, the direct reports the average manager carries, the people reporting to the chief executive, the contractors who need a box, how often the chart is redrawn, how long that takes and what an hour of the person doing it costs. It returns the boxes the chart needs, the managers the span implies, the people with nobody reporting to them, how far three layers reach, the layers the chart needs, and what redrawing it by hand costs a year. The figure to argue over is the span of control: every point you take off it adds managers.
The managers, off the span
120 people at a span of seven is 15 managers and 105 people with nobody reporting to them. Take the span down to five and the same company needs 20 managers, which is five more salaries and one fewer layer of distance between the top and the work.
The layers, off the people at the top
Four leaders reporting to the chief executive reach 28 people in two layers and 228 in three, so a 120-person company fits inside four layers. If your headcount is past that reach, the chart needs a fifth layer or the top needs to be wider.
What redrawing costs
Four redraws a year at ninety minutes each is six hours, and at $38 an hour that is $228 a year across 128 boxes, about $1.78 a box. That is the cost of keeping a picture rather than a record, and it is paid again every time somebody joins.
Questions people ask about the Organizational structure chart
Where does the span of control come from? Your own figures: total people divided by the number of people who have somebody reporting to them. The worked example uses seven because that is what the example company runs, not because seven is a target.
Should contractors be on the chart? If somebody needs to know who they answer to, yes, and the chart should show that they are contractors. On the worked example eight of them take a 120-box chart to 128.
What if we have no managers yet? Then the chart is one layer and the sheet says so: at a span above the headcount, everyone reports to the top. The useful output is the layer count as you hire, not the one you have today.
Orgbix Pro
Keep the chart you just worked out
The sheet works the chart out this afternoon. Pro keeps it: the people, the lines and the version before this one, so the next reorganisation starts from the current chart instead of from last quarter's export.
- Download the chart as a file for the board pack
- Send it without the Orgbix watermark across it
- Come back to this chart with every figure still in it
- Put your logo and colours on the chart people actually see
- Export every chart and every profile in one go, not one at a time
- Tell a manager their part of the directory has gone stale
- Not used by Orgbix: this product takes no payment on your behalf
- Not used by Orgbix: this product does not sync to accounting
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