Org charts for executive assistants
In most companies the person who actually maintains the org chart is not in HR. It is the assistant or chief of staff, because they are the one the executive asks. This is the version of the job nobody writes down: what the chart is for, what belongs on it, and how to rebuild it in minutes when the last one is four reorgs out of date.
What the chart is actually for
Not decoration for the intranet. Five things it gets used for, and each one wants slightly different content.
The board pack and the leadership review
A current chart of the exec's org, exported clean, is a slide in almost every quarterly pack. It is also the slide people ask the most questions about, so it needs to be right rather than pretty.
Onboarding someone senior
A new hire's first real question is who does what. A chart with names, titles and departments answers a week of questions in one page, and is the single most requested document in a first week.
Headcount and hiring plans
Open roles drawn as open cards make the plan and the structure the same document. Finance reads it as cost, the exec reads it as capacity, and neither needs a separate spreadsheet.
A reorg, before it is announced
Moving people on a chart is how a reorg gets thought through. Keep it to a chart nobody else can see, and share only when the exec is ready — a leaked draft chart causes more damage than any memo.
Meetings, travel and who to ask
Half the assistant's day is knowing who owns something. The chart is the fastest answer, particularly the dotted lines, which are usually the ones nobody has written down anywhere else.
What to put on it
- Name, title and department for everyone in the exec's org, at least two levels down.
- The exec's own manager, and their peers, so the chart shows where the org sits.
- Open roles, drawn as vacancies, with the title the job will have.
- Contractors and agency staff who work on the team, marked as contractors.
- The dotted lines — matrix reports, deputies, standing project leads — because they are the part nobody else records.
- A date. A chart without one is treated as current forever.
What to keep off
- Salary, band or compensation of any kind. It ends up in the wrong hands via the wrong export.
- Personal details: home addresses, personal numbers, dates of birth, anything from an HR file.
- Performance ratings, flight risk, succession notes. Keep those in a document that is not shaped like something you hand around.
- People below the level the reader needs. Two levels is usually enough; five is a wall.
- Photos, unless the chart is for onboarding and the people in it have agreed.
The rule behind the second list: assume every chart you make will eventually be forwarded to someone you did not intend. Anything that would be a problem then does not belong on it now.
Keeping it current
The reason most org charts are wrong is not neglect. It is that they were built by hand, so every change costs twenty minutes of dragging boxes, and after the third reorg nobody has twenty minutes. The fix is to stop maintaining a drawing and start maintaining a list.
Keep the people in a spreadsheet — name, title, department, who they report to — or pull the export straight from the HR system. Import it and the chart is drawn for you, correctly, every time. When something changes, change the row and re-import, or edit the chart directly and let the layout redraw itself. A chart nobody has to redraw is a chart that stays true.
One chart, not seven. If every meeting gets its own copy, they diverge within a month and you become the person who has to reconcile them. Keep a single chart, share a link to it rather than a screenshot, and export a fixed image only when something needs to be frozen — a board pack, a memo, a deck that will be read six months from now. When the exec is planning something bigger, the reorg guide is written for exactly that.
Questions assistants ask
- What is the fastest way to build an org chart if I only have a spreadsheet?
- Export the list of people from your HR system, or type two columns — name and who they report to — and import it. The layout is automatic, so the work is in the data rather than in dragging boxes. A team of forty takes a couple of minutes, and the messy manager names are matched for you.
- How do I keep the chart current without chasing everyone?
- Keep one chart and edit it as things change, rather than making a new copy for each meeting. Put it somewhere the leadership team can see, so mistakes are reported to you instead of quietly copied. Then re-import from HR every quarter to catch what you missed.
- Should I put open roles on a chart the board will see?
- Usually yes, marked clearly as open. A vacancy on a chart reads as a plan; a vacancy discovered later reads as a gap. The exception is a role that exists because someone is leaving and has not announced it — leave that one off until it is real.
- How do I show someone who works for two people?
- Solid line to the manager who owns their pay, performance and career; dotted line to the person who directs their work. Assistants are the ones who usually know which is which, and drawing both is more useful to the exec than picking one and being half wrong.
- Where should the assistant appear on the chart?
- Beside the executive, not below them. An assistant does not report through the leadership team, and drawing them as another direct report puts them in a line of people they do not manage or belong to. Most tools call this a staff or assistant position; it draws to one side of the reporting line.
Start from what you already have
A spreadsheet, an old PDF, a screenshot of the chart your predecessor made: any of them becomes a chart you can edit. Building is free at any size, and you only pay when you need a clean file to hand over.