Accountability charts are more than rectangles and lines (some dotted, some dashed). They can be a critical tool for any team as they map a vision for growth and scaling.
As a business owner with fewer than 99 employees, you wear many hats, and chances are you are reaching the point where you need some HR support. You and your admin probably aren’t cutting it anymore. You are missing the HR expertise necessary to support sustainable growth.
The reality is that you are exposing yourself to liability and even slowing your growth by not having critical HR policies and procedures in place.
As an HR consultant, I can help you map your existing business and plan for the organization you want to build. Developing an organizational chart can help you put your vision on paper and enable you to clearly communicate your vision to your team so they understand where they fit in. For many, it helps them to understand their position and even the limits of their roles.
How do you start to develop organizational charts for your current business? How do you represent “dotted lines” and direct reports?
Let’s get started…
Examine Your Current Organizational Chart
Start by reviewing your existing organizational chart. Perhaps you never made a detailed chart, but have a rough idea of the responsibilities assigned to each role in your business. Map out the chart as it currently applies to your organization.
A basic organizational chart should include:
- The roles in your business
- The basic functions of each position in the company
- Lines indicating which workers report to whom
Ensure your initial chart reflects every worker in the business and all the responsibilities they currently have. This will give you a good starting point for creating a new chart to help grow and scale your business.
Identify Problems in Your Chart
Your existing organizational chart likely does not allow for sustainable growth. Employees are currently only responsible for the tasks assigned to them in your business’s existing state. As a result, your next step is to identify potential problems in the chart that need to be resolved before you can scale.
For example, maybe there are:
- Too many people reporting to you, the founder
- Skill gaps in your existing team, indicating that no one currently has the knowledge or expertise for certain tasks necessary for scaling
- Not enough workers are responsible for a sizable task, risking burnout for current workers
- Issues with operational efficiency, where more workers are assigned to responsibilities that one or two employees should be able to handle
Identifying these issues can help you determine what changes to make in your next organizational chart.
Fill in Gaps As Needed
Sustainable business expansion requires you to first fill in the gaps in your organizational chart. This might involve hiring new workers to support team members who currently feel overburdened or adding new talent to your team to resolve skill gaps.
Once you identify problems in your current organizational chart, you can begin making a plan to overcome them. Proper planning is critical for growing and scaling a business. Without it, you risk not having adequate talent to meet the demands of customers or clients, impacting your reputation and ultimately leading to the downfall of the business.
Consult 45 Solutions for Scaling Strategies
Whether you are looking to promote revenue growth, expand market penetration, or boost customer acquisition, using the right strategies to grow and scale a business is key. Creating a new organizational chart — and seeking the right talent to fill each role — can help you sustainably grow your business and set your team up for success.
At 45 Solutions, we help businesses recruit and retain the best talent to support their goals. Book a call today to learn more about our HR solutions.
