Traditional organizational charts are outdated and inefficient. While they may have served a useful (but albeit limited) purpose to organizations once upon a time, much like floppy disks and dial-up Internet, they have been relegated to the history books.

Or they should have been, at least.

For reasons unbeknown to us, there are plenty of organizations out there that are using traditional organizational charts instead of the infinitely superior modern alternatives that long since replaced them.

If this sounds like your organization, carry on reading!

 

What are ‘Traditional Organizational Charts’?

By traditional organizational chart, we mean any type of static organizational chart that has been put together in something like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint (or worse, drawn on paper!) As a result, they are rarely updated and are pretty much never a real-time reflection of an organization’s structure.

Today, these old school organizational charts just aren’t good enough. Even in an organization that has all the best intentions, chances are that regularly updating a traditional static chart is going to end up falling by the wayside when more pressing tasks arise.

On top of this, traditional organizational charts could end up doing harm to your business.

 

Traditional Org Charts Are Bad for Business

While it might seem strange to think that something as simple as an organizational chart could have a negative impact on your business, it’s true. Here are some of the ways that this could happen in your own organization:

 

1. Opportunities Could Be Missed

Think about how often changes happen within your organization. New hires join your team, existing employees move into new roles or leave, and teams go through restructures and leadership changes. This is exactly why traditional organizational charts are almost always never a true reflection of your up-to-date structure, save for a short period of time immediately after you put it together.

When your organizational chart is outdated, you run the risk of missing opportunities due to potential issues resource gaps and misallocated talent. In a fast-growing start-up environment, this is a major risk factor because employees are agile, and peoples’ responsibilities are constantly changing.

 

2. Information Flow is Restricted

The whole point of an organizational chart is to clearly illustrate people and roles within an organization.

While a traditional organizational chart can do this to an extent (up until the point that it becomes outdated, that is), there is very little room for additional information about individuals. Most traditional organizational charts don’t even allow for the inclusion of basics like contact information, for example, let alone other important inclusions like birthdays, core working hours, and role-specific information.

Live organizational charts on the other hand, such as those you can build with Organimi, are the complete opposite. Modern organizational chart software can be used to build dynamic, in-depth charts that can be used to share a whole range of useful information about employees such as job titles, teams, skills, and interests.

 

3. Nobody Pays Attention to Them

No matter how well built a traditional organizational chart is, it has very limited usefulness and your employees know this. They know that within a matter of weeks, perhaps even days, it will become an outdated and unreliable point of reference.

While they might look at it once or twice when it’s new, it will be quickly forgotten about; employees inevitably lose faith in an organizational chart that’s unable to reflect the realities of the organizational structure as it currently exists. This can also have an impact on company culture. For instance it could lead employees to believe that the company is the type to cut corners and make a slap-dash effort, and this may be reflected in their own work. 

 

Making the Switch to Live Organizational Charts

If you are still relying on an organizational chart that has been drawn up on paper or painstakingly put together in Microsoft Word, it’s time for a change.

There are so many different live organizational chart options available with several use cases and benefits over traditional charts for the organizations that utilize them. When a live org chart is used to its full potential, it can quickly become a very valuable asset.

Live org chart software like Organimi makes it easy to build dynamic organizational charts that are automatically updated in real-time and help to encourage collaboration, inform decision making, and aid workforce planning efforts.

Why not check out the features and capabilities of Organimi for yourself? You will soon realize just how much better live organizational charts are in comparison to outdated static ones.