Ade's first week: Ade joined the bakers at the Mill Lane bakery in June. On Thursday he needs next Monday off, and he is not sure who to ask.
Lena? Marco? The manager of the shop his bread goes to?
How Ade finds the answer
Find the chart
Pinned by the staff-room door is a sheet with boxes and lines on it.
Look at the top
Lena and Marco are in the box at the top.
Find his own name
Ade finds his own name near the bottom.
Follow the line up
It leads to Priti, the head baker. She is the one to ask.
That sheet is an organization chart: a picture of who reports to whom in a business (its reporting relationships). The person with the most authority sits at the top. Beneath them are the people who report straight to them, and beneath those the people who report to them, all the way down to the staff who report to nobody below.
Level 1
The top of the chart
- Lena and Marco, the two directors
- They run the company and report to nobody on the chart
Level 2
Report to Lena and Marco
- Aisha, manager of the High Street shop
- Kofi, manager of the Market Square shop
- Jonas, manager of the Park Road shop
- Priti, head baker at the Mill Lane bakery
Level 3
Report to a manager
- Four counter staff under Aisha
- Three counter staff under Kofi, three under Jonas
- Six bakers under Priti, Ade among them
Five things you can read off any chart
A box is a job
Each box holds a job title, often with the name of the person doing it: "Head baker, Priti". A group of people doing the same job can share one box or be shown as small circles.
A line is a reporting link
A line joins a person to the one above them, who gives them instructions and answers for their work (their line manager). Ade's line goes to Priti, not to Jonas, even though his bread ends up in Jonas's shop.
A row is a level
Everyone on the same row has the same rank. Count the rows and you have the number of levels of hierarchy. Lena's chart has three.
The boxes under one box are its span
Count the lines coming down from one person: that is how many people report to them directly (their span of control). Priti's is six; Lena and Marco's is four.
Follow the lines up for the chain
The path from any box up to the top is the chain of command: the route an instruction travels down and a question travels up. Ade to Priti to Lena and Marco.
Read the lines, not the page: A box drawn further left, or bigger, is not more senior. Only two things show rank: which row a box is on, and where its line goes.
A chart also shows only the official links. It does not show that the bakers ring Jonas directly when a Park Road order looks wrong. Real conversations often cut across the lines.
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Often it goes the other way: you are given a few sentences about who runs a business and who works for whom, and you draw the chart (construct it).
The sentences hold every box and every line. Your job is to put them in the right rows.
The description: Lena's Bakery Ltd is run by its two directors, Lena and Marco. Four managers report to them: Aisha, who manages the High Street shop; Kofi, Market Square; Jonas, Park Road; and Priti, the head baker at the Mill Lane bakery.
Aisha has four counter staff. Kofi and Jonas have three each. Priti has six bakers.
Constructing the chart, step by step
The top box
Find who is in charge and draw them at the top. Here that is one box for the two directors, labelled "Directors: Lena and Marco".
The row below
Everyone who reports to the top goes in one row, level with each other: four boxes, labelled with the job and the name. "High Street shop manager, Aisha", and so on.
The lines up
Join each of the four boxes to the top box with a line. No box floats on its own, and no line skips a row.
The teams
Under each manager, draw their team and join it to them: four small boxes under Aisha, three under Kofi, three under Jonas, six under Priti. Label each group: counter staff, bakers.
Check it against the words
Count the rows: three. Count what hangs from each box: 4 under the directors; 4, 3, 3 and 6 under the managers. Every name in the description is on the chart, and nothing else is.
| Level | Boxes on this row | Each box is joined up to | How many are joined below it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Directors: Lena and Marco | Nobody | 4 |
| 2 | High Street shop manager, Aisha | Lena and Marco | 4 counter staff |
| 2 | Market Square shop manager, Kofi | Lena and Marco | 3 counter staff |
| 2 | Park Road shop manager, Jonas | Lena and Marco | 3 counter staff |
| 2 | Head baker, Priti (Mill Lane) | Lena and Marco | 6 bakers |
| 3 | 10 counter staff and 6 bakers | Their own manager | None |
What spoils a chart: Four slips cost marks: a level left out (usually the staff at the bottom), boxes with no labels, a manager or a team missing, and lines that do not show who reports to whom.
The chart can run down the page or across it. What matters is that anyone can see who is above whom.
Sometimes a chart has to be put into words instead of drawn: in a typed answer, or in your own notes. The rows still decide the order.
Typing a chart instead of drawing it: Go row by row, from the top. "Top: Lena and Marco, directors. Reporting to them: Aisha, Kofi, Jonas and Priti. Under Aisha: four counter staff. Under Kofi: three. Under Jonas: three. Under Priti: six bakers."
Each sentence is one row of boxes and says whose line it hangs from.
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Same bakery, two shapes: Lena's chart has 22 people on three levels. An instruction from Lena reaches a baker through one person, Priti.
Now imagine Lena and Marco put a sales manager over the three shops, and a shift supervisor in each shop between the manager and the counter staff. The same sixteen staff are at the bottom, but the chart grows two more rows.
Flat (horizontal) chart
- Few levels. Lena's chart today: three rows.
- Wide spans. Each manager has many boxes hanging from them: Priti has six.
- Short chains. A message from Lena reaches a baker through one person.
- Wide and low on the page. The chart spreads sideways.
Tall (vertical) chart
- Many levels. The same bakery with a sales manager and supervisors: five rows.
- Narrow spans. Each manager has only a few boxes under them.
- Long chains. Lena to a counter assistant passes through three people.
- Narrow and high on the page. The chart stretches downwards.
| Read off the chart | Flat: Lena's today | Tall: with a sales manager and supervisors |
|---|---|---|
| Levels | 3 | 5 |
| Chain from Lena to a Park Road counter assistant | Lena, Jonas, the assistant | Lena, the sales manager, Jonas, the supervisor, the assistant |
| Jonas's span of control | 3 counter staff | 1 supervisor |
| Managers and supervisors | 4 | 8 |
Switch between tall and flat. The same staff, drawn two ways: more levels means longer lines from the top to the bottom.
Interactive diagram
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So when a case shows you a chart, the shape tells you something before you read a single name. A flat chart means each manager looks after many people and messages pass through few hands. A tall chart means more managers, each looking after few people, and messages that pass through many hands on the way down.
Two mix-ups: Flat is not the same as small. Judge the levels against the number of people. Three levels for 22 people is flat; eight levels for 200 people is tall.
Horizontal and vertical are shapes, not directions. A flat chart is also called horizontal and a tall one vertical. Either can be drawn down the page or across it.
Look at the second row of any chart and ask what each box stands for. That row shows how the business is grouped.
There are three common answers: a box for each kind of job, a box for each kind of product, or a box for each place.
By function
- A box for each kind of job: production, sales, finance, marketing, human resources
- Lena's version: a head baker for all baking, a sales manager for all shops, a finance manager
- Each manager is an expert in one kind of work
By product
- A box for each range of goods, with its own team
- Lena's version: a bread manager, a cakes and pastries manager, a lunches manager
- Each manager answers for everything about one range
By region
- A box for each area or place, with its own team
- Lena's version, if she grows to three towns: a manager for her home town, one for Riverton, one for Dunmore
- Each manager knows the customers of one place
Real charts mix: Lena's own chart is a mixture. The three shops are boxes for places, so that part is grouped by region. Priti's box is a kind of job, production, so that part is grouped by function.
When you comment on a chart, say which grouping you can see, and name the boxes that show it.
| The second row shows | Suits a business that | |
|---|---|---|
| By function | Jobs: production, marketing, finance, human resources | Does one main kind of work, where each skill needs its own expert |
| By product | Ranges: bread, cakes, lunches; or cars, vans, trucks | Sells very different goods, each needing its own know-how |
| By region | Places: towns, countries, areas of the world | Sells in places whose customers, rules or languages differ |
Reading the grouping tells you who to look for. On a chart grouped by function, the person who runs marketing does it for every product and every place. On one grouped by region, each regional manager does a bit of everything for one area.
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How this comes up: Organization charts come up in two-mark questions: you construct one from a description, or comment on one you are shown.
| Question | Marks |
|---|---|
| A few sentences describe who runs the business and who reports to whom. Construct the organization chart. | 2 |
| A chart is shown. Comment on it: its shape, its levels, its spans, or how it is grouped, with a detail from the chart. | 2 |
For the first, the description gives a chief executive, the managers below and how many staff each manager has.
Constructing a chart for two marks
- The top box. The person in charge, labelled with the job and the name.
- The row below. Every person who reports to the top, in one row, each box labelled.
- The lines. A clear line from each box up to the box it reports to.
- The teams. Under each manager, their staff, in the numbers the description gives. Small circles are fine.
- The check. Count the rows and the boxes under each person against the description.
The traps: A level left out. The managers are drawn and the staff under them are forgotten. That is the most common slip.
Boxes with no labels, or lines that go nowhere. Every box needs a job title, and every line must end at the box that person reports to. Adding people the description never mentions is also a slip.
Construct the organization chart for Lena's Bakery Ltd.
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