Does your company have new summer hires (or farewell retirements) coming aboard this season? If so, it’s a wise time to review and evaluate your existing organization chart.

If that effort sounds: a) tedious, b) overwhelming, or c) both, we’ve got a few quick-start tips from Women in Print Alliance Professional Advisor Adriane Harrison, VP of Human Relations at PRINTING United Alliance, to motivate and guide you.

According to Harrison, asking a lot of questions when analyzing an organization chart should be the first step in your evaluation.

Key questions to ask about your current chart include:

  • Is it accurate?
  • Does it make sense?
  • Have titles been given equitably?
  • Does it lead to salary and wage compression?

After pondering answers to the questions above, it’s time to make any necessary adjustments. Harrison suggests starting by adjusting the organization chart to the actualities of your business. Specifically:

  • Change titles where it makes sense, being conscious of the affect that a title change for one employee will have on others in your workforce.
  • Ensure managers are not overloaded with too many direct reports.
  • After revisions are finalized, make sure job descriptions for any changed titles or positions are edited to match the new structure.

Finally, remember to communicate and congratulate any revisions or promotions to the entire team. Incorporate this news into existing internal employee communication channels, such as newsletter or town hall meeting.

As Harrison says, this type of “clear and direct communication between the leadership team and the employees” regarding this type of news is “important to creating trust, positive moral, and retaining employees.”