Org charts for a merger
Two companies, two charts that don't line up, and a date by which everyone needs to know who they report to. The integration chart is the document every workstream ends up using, whether or not anyone planned it that way — so build it early, mark what is decided and what is not, and keep it true through the first hundred days.
Day 1
Two charts that don't line up
The first thing an integration chart reveals is that the two companies use different words for the same job, and the same word for different jobs. One has a chief operating officer and the other an operations director; one calls the person running a site a plant manager and the other a site manager; one has team leaders where the other has shift supervisors. Layers differ too — the acquired company will often have one more, or one fewer, between the top and the floor.
Normalise before you draw. A short table, agreed by both HR teams, of what each title becomes on the combined chart. It is an hour's work, it stops a dozen arguments, and it is the spreadsheet column that makes the merged import clean.
| Northbrook | Ellery | Combined chart |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Operating Officer | Operations Director | Chief Operating Officer |
| Plant Manager | Site Manager | Plant Manager |
| Shift Supervisor | Team Leader | Shift Supervisor |
| Chief Commercial Officer | Sales & Marketing Director | Chief Commercial Officer |
| Group Controller | Financial Controller | Controller |
| Customer Service Rep | Account Coordinator | Customer Service Rep |
Import both, then merge
Import each company's export into its own chart first, and look at them honestly before combining anything. The acquired company's chart is usually the more surprising: the structure the deal team was shown is the structure as of the last reorg, not this one.
Then build the combined chart from one spreadsheet: both exports, one under the other, with a column for the company each person came from and the manager column rewritten to the combined structure. Where someone's new manager is in the other company, write the name as it appears in that company's export — the importer matches managers by name across the whole file, and heals the spelling differences that two HR systems always have.
What Day 1 has to answer
The chart people see on the first morning does four things. Everything else can wait; none of these can.
The top two levels, decided
Who reports to whom from the chief executive down two layers is not optional on Day 1. Everything below can be provisional; this cannot, because everyone below will look up to find out where they stand.
Every acquired employee's solid line
Each person from the acquired company needs one manager on the combined chart, even if it is their old manager. A person with no line is a person who has started looking.
What is open, drawn as open
The roles not yet decided — usually the ones two people are competing for — go on the chart as vacancies with the combined title. An empty space is read as "they forgot us"; an open card is read as "they are deciding".
What is transitional, dotted
The acquired leadership team keeps dotted lines to their old people for the first quarter, and the chart says when those lines end. It is the difference between a transition and a turf war.
Who sees the chart, and when
Before closing: the deal team, the integration lead and whoever counsel has cleared, by view link, no exports. On Day 1: the announced chart, everywhere at once — the same file in every deck and the share link live so people can find themselves. After that: the live link, and a dated export each week for the steering committee.
The chart that circulates before it should is the one that names who is losing their role. Treat the draft as you would the deal itself.
The first hundred days
The chart changes weekly. Titles settle, the open roles are decided one by one, the dotted lines expire on the dates you wrote down, and the "ex-" labels come off. Give it one owner — the integration lead — and make the chart the record the workstreams update, rather than a picture someone redraws from their notes.
At the end, re-import from the combined HR system. Whatever it disagrees with the chart about is the list of things the integration missed.
Questions people ask
- How do I show two reporting lines during the transition?
- Solid line to the new manager, dotted line to the legacy leader, and a date in the note for when the dotted line goes. Draw it. The alternative is people acting on whichever line suits them, and the acquired leadership quietly running a company inside the company.
- Should the chart show which company people came from?
- During the transition, yes, in the title: "Finance Director (ex-Ellery)" tells everyone what they need to know without a legend. Then remove it, on a date you choose, all at once. The day the chart stops saying "ex-" is the day the merger is over for most people, so make it a decision rather than an accident.
- What do we do with two people in the same role?
- Draw the combined role as open, with both incumbents reporting to it, until it is decided. Then one takes the role and the other gets either a new role or a transition title with an end date. Never leave both with their old titles and no line between them — that is not a structure, it is a question nobody has asked out loud.
- When does the combined chart go into the HR system?
- After Day 1, once the first wave of changes has settled — the end of the first month is typical. Load it from the chart's spreadsheet rather than by hand, and treat the chart as the source until then: the systems will be two companies' worth of exceptions for a while.
- Can we import the other company's org chart before the deal closes?
- Only if counsel says so. Before closing, the target's employee data is usually restricted to a clean team, and the integration chart is itself deal-confidential. Build the Day 1 chart with the people cleared to see it, share it by named link, and export nothing until it is announced.
One chart, from before Day 1 to after day 100
Import both companies from their exports, draw the combined structure with the transition lines in, and share it by link so the steering committee is always looking at the current version. Free to build; export when it is time to announce.