he push by talent management software vendors to outfit their applications with
the look and feel of org charts is calling attention to what has been a quieter
corner of the HR software market: products expressly designed to create organizational
charts.
Org chart software, from vendors including Nakisa, Aquire
and HumanConcepts, represents organizations and employee reporting relationships
in graphical form. The products can display the hierarchical structure of a company,
with boxes that display employee names and titles and sometimes additional items
such as their photos and performance rating.
Sellers of org chart software say their products not
only provide a clear view of an organization’s structure, but also help with strategic
decision-making. HumanConcepts, for example, says its software can play a key role
in managing mergers and acquisitions by letting companies aggregate employee data
from two firms and build a hypothetical combined organization within the application.
Martin Sacks, CEO of HumanConcepts, expects that the
talent management vendors that have been adding org chart interfaces will eventually
try to incorporate such workforce planning functions into their products—meaning
more competition for him. But Sacks is glad to see the interest in org charts from
vendors such as SuccessFactors and Authoria, because it indicates the org chart
software market is on the rise.
"We kind of welcome them," Sacks says. "We do a lot
of things that they’re not going to get to."
In the past year or two, user interfaces defined by
org charts with "baseball cards" representing employees have become a growing trend
in talent management applications, which are products for key human resource tasks
such as recruiting, performance management and compensation planning. Major talent
management players Taleo, SuccessFactors, Authoria and Cornerstone OnDemand have
woven an org chart look and feel into their software. SAP, which sells a wide range
of HR software, recently joined forces with Nakisa in launching a joint product
designed to help with tasks including succession planning.
Other talent management vendors and some analysts are
skeptical of the org chart interface trend, even calling it a fad. But advocates
see org charts as a friendlier user interface and a key to improving adoption of
talent management tools by managers and employees.
In fact, some talent management vendors are exploring
the possibility of doing more with org charts. Authoria says its software already
will allow organizations to view planned but not yet approved new positions and
calculate the potential costs of those hires. The company is looking into enhancing
its software to help organizations do scenario planning for mergers and acquisitions.
Taleo, for its part, is working on a feature that would
allow managers to model teams. But Dave Michaud, vice president of product marketing
at Taleo, says there’s a limit to how much org chart functionality his company will
add. "Advanced org chart capability really isn’t our focus," he says. "We really
focus on talent management best practices."
Workforce Management, May 19, 2008, p. 24
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